


Medesimo Tempo (same tempo, despite changes of time signature)

by Jade_Rhose



Series: Dissonant Melody [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle of Hogwarts AU, F/M, Gen, Parallel Universe Travel, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Summoning Magic, Time Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Rhose/pseuds/Jade_Rhose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry expected to die when the wards fell on their tent. He never thought he'd end up in an alternate reality, expected to win a war that he had already lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. C-Major

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is owned by J.K. Rowling. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and I do not make any profit from it, other than the reader's enjoyment.
> 
> Rating is subject to change. It is currently rated for language and dark themes.
> 
> This is Part Three of a series. Part Two is not needed to understand this, but Part One is.

Harry expected to die when he felt the wards fall on their tent. And if he didn't die immediately, he figured that it was only a matter of time before he was executed by Voldemort, or one of his minions.

He figured it would be pretty painless. After pouring so much magic into that ritual to send Hermione into the past, he knew he dropped himself into a coma, at the very least.

At worst… Well, there were worse ways to die than magical exhaustion. He can easily think of a few endings that Voldemort had in store for him, courtesy of the chunk of soul in his forehead.

But, given the fact that he isn't dead--or he doesn't think he's dead, anyway, since he is laying on a soft bed. Though it certainly _feels_ heavenly, he's pretty sure the afterlife isn't quite so _sterile._

As he's considering his metaphysical presence, his mind is taking stock of his surroundings, while he is pretending to be asleep. He quickly realizes that he must be more addled than he thought, because his environment is _very_ familiar.

Because if he didn't know any better, he'd say that he was in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. Which is ridiculous, because he _saw_ the ruins of the Ravenclaw tower fall into it, less than a year ago.

And Hogwarts would mean Voldemort, and he can't really see that bastard actually giving him a bed, let alone medical treatment.

Yet, even though he has just about convinced himself it's a hallucination, or really good illusion, he is still surprised that when he opens his eyes, he is actually in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. He almost recognizes the blanket of magic surrounding the bed, covered in monitoring and what he is assuming is a containment spell. And unless he really is hallucinating, he's seeing Madam Pomfrey walk purposefully over to his bedside.

"You're awake!" She exclaims, rushing over the last few feet when she sees that his eyes are open. "Given the state of your magic when Headmaster Dumbledore brought you in, we didn't think you'd wake for another few days, at the very least."

Her wand snaps to her hand as she shoots a stream of silver from it, the patronus not fully forming before it shoots off towards the closed doors of the Wing. She then turns the wand to Harry, who flinches minutely as he searches for his own wand.

The mediwitch gives Harry a frowning sort of look, but doesn't comment as Harry recognizes the diagnostic spells that flow from her wand. He relaxes, but still doesn’t take his sight from her wand--he still isn't certain this isn't an elaborate hoax or hallucination.

Since last he knew, Madam Pomfrey was killed in the massacre at Hogwarts protecting students as they tried to flee on brooms from the North Tower.

It doesn't take long before her wand stops moving, the frown still on her face. "Well, young man, it looks like there won't be any lasting damage to your core from whatever you did to exhaust it so. I will still keep you here overnight for observation, do you understand?" she says, fixing him with a gimlet stare that he certainly recognizes.

Yet, all he can think about is that she would call him young man, and not just "Potter," in that overly suffering tone he got to know so well over his six years attending Hogwarts. Things are not adding up, in his mind, and he is beginning to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

She turns from him, and he finds his voice. "Do you--" He coughs, his throat sore from disuse. Madam Pomfrey helps him sit up and get some water. "Do you know where my wand is? My bag?"

She shakes her head absently, placing the glass of water on the tray table beside his bed. She fills it with her wand, and looks to him. "I'm sorry, I don't. Professor Dumbledore might know; he was the one who brought you in. Might I ask… who you are?" she asks curiously.

The bottom drops from his stomach as her words finally permeate his mind. _Professor Dumbledore._ She doesn’t know who he is? _What in the world is going on?_

It hits him, that for the first time, she _doesn’t know who he is._ He has no idea what is going on, but… He doesn’t have to be Harry Potter. He doesn’t have to deal with the baggage that comes with being the Boy-Who-Lived. It strikes him as odd, and a thought is formulating in the back of his mind.

Like always, he goes with his gut. "I'm Evan. Evan… Grim," he finishes with a grimace, mentally smacking himself. Clearly creative, quick thinking was beyond him at this point, and he prays that Hermione _never_ learns about it.

"Well, Evan, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am the mediwitch here, Madam Promfrey. Please let me know if you need anything at all," she says with a slight smile, either not noticing or not commenting on Harry's pause before his name and the grimace afterwards.

This time when she turns, he lets her leave, too caught up in his thoughts to stop her. Yet, he isn't left to his thoughts for long, because the doors to the ward slam open.

_Oh,_ he says in a small voice in his mind, _that's what it's like to have a heart attack._

Because standing there, speaking to Madam Pomfrey, who had just bustled over, is Albus Dumbledore, resplendent in lime green and turquoise blue robes. But the old man wasn't alone. No, it appeared that he had a veritable retinue of followers, many of whom Harry recognized, from his own interactions with them, or from photos.

The first person Harry recognizes is Severus Snape. The old dungeon bat, looks the same as ever, all hook-nosed and scowling. Except, you know, not dead. Harry had personally witnessed the man's final act of defiance against Voldemort, because he bought Harry and Hermione enough time to get out from under the anti-apparation wards.

That isn't to say that Harry likes the guy. Sure, he can respect what Snape did to keep the students safe, but six years of hatred is a lot to get past.

Harry also recognizes Professor McGonagall. Behind her, is the mild mannered Remus Lupin, both of who died at the massacre of Hogwarts. Harry's eyes barely skitter over the others, in what feels like a second heart attack.

Because he is fairly sure the tall, roguish wizard elbowing Lupin is Sirius Black, his godfather, looking happier--and more alive (Harry shakes his head in disappointment in himself)--than Harry had ever seen him.

The others… Harry can't even contemplate. Harry looks away, rubbing his eyes of the dry grittiness that had collected during his nap. He wishes he had his pack, so he could take out the contact lenses Hermione had gotten him that summer. Frankly, he hated them, but he understood her concern of having him half blind if anything happened to his glasses in the middle of a fight.

It isn't long before Harry hears the group come to his bedside, and he looks up at the man he had, for so long, considered a mentor, as he sits at Harry's bedside. He isn't stupid though, and he doesn't quite make eye contact, staring instead at the man's lavish robes.

"You gave us quite the scare, Mr. Grim," the old man began. "I am told by Madame Pomfrey that you have questions. I am Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

"You… you could say that I have questions," Harry says, his eyes skittering across the people gathered behind the old man, some lounging on the bed beside his. "Where am I?" he started, with probably the most obvious question.

A woman standing behind the Professor, with brilliant red hair, looks at him with a confused frown. "You don't recognize it? You are at the Hogwarts infirmary."

Harry, barely, refrains from rolling his eyes. "Clearly. I spent enough time here when I was a student. What I'm asking is… where _am_ I?"

Harry was quite proud that his voice didn't crack despite the fact that he was clearly surrounded by dead people. He thinks that maybe he recognizes a woman from the Order of the Phoenix as Vence, or Vance, or something, who escaped to the mainland a few weeks after the massacre at Hogwarts, but he knows that all these people died.

Despite the mini-heart attacks earlier, Harry thinks that he is taking this mass resurrection urprisingly well. He is still hoping that he is in a hallucination, but the longer he's here, the more dread settles in his stomach.

Dumbledore chuckles and he turns to the woman. "He certainly is clever, Lily, to have deduced as much from as little he has seen." He turns back to Harry, who is in the middle of a mental meltdown, trying not to look at the woman beside Dumbledore who may or may not be his mother. "My dear boy, where do you think you are?"

Harry doesn't listen to him. He is a little too preoccupied with not looking at the rest of the people in the room, lest he break down and cry. With almost more strength than he thought he possessed, he looks back at the Headmaster. "Where is my wand? My… bag?"

There is a distinctly barking laugh from behind the Headmaster, and Harry couldn't help but cringe slightly. "You mean that purse that came with you? Moony has been trying to crack the charms on it for days now!"

All Harry's energies are working towards not reacting, not giving himself away, as he looks at the crooked nose of the Headmaster. "Yes, like Mr. Black has said, we do have the bag you… came with. And your wand," he says, pulling a very familiar wand from his robes. As Harry reaches out for it, the old man holds it back slightly. "But first, I think we need to have a conversation."

"I agree," Harry says, his voice noticeably cooler. To him, withholding his wand just about guarantees that Harry will be as uncooperative as possible. Intellectually, he understands why these people--who obviously don't know him--would want to vet him first before handing him a live weapon. But on a personal level, he can finally see clearly without being clouded by his emotions.

Despite the fact that it appeared he was surrounded by dead people he loved and/or respected, these weren't the same people who gave their lives for something they believed in. "I think you need to tell me where exactly I am, and how exactly I got here."

"Now listen here, _boy,_ " Snape began from where he was, beside Dumbledore, pushing forward and attempting to make eye contact, sneering into Harry's face.

"Severus," the red haired woman interrupts heatedly, "He has a reason to be upset, I mean we did summon him from--"

"Lily!" Snape snaps, turning his glare from Harry to the red headed woman, backing up so he wasn't quite in Dumbledore's face any longer.

Harry closes his eyes as his stomach drops once more. Until she had said it… he had been able to pretend. Say it was a hallucination. Make believe it was a dream. But now that she has given the thought life... Well, there was no stuffing that back into Pandora's box.

"Why would you summon _me?"_ he asks plaintively. " _How…?"_

"Well," Professor Dumbledore says almost joyfully. "That is an interesting story. You see, we have been losing the war against Voldemort," Harry almost scoffs when the collective flinch occurs behind the old man, "for quite some time now. I assume you know who Voldemort is?" he asks Harry.

Harry merely nods, while arching an eyebrow at the man.

"So, we needed a champion. Someone to help us win this war for good. And that is where you come in."

Harry can't quite contain his scoff this time. The red headed woman turns her anger to Harry, "You don't know what it's like! You can't possibly understand how bad it is for us!"

That ignites a spark of rage in Harry. "What make you think that I can even help?" he bites out at the Headmaster, the anger curling up in him like an old friend.

"Ah, that was the nature of the ritual, you see. The runic conversions were quite specific, searching for someone with the potential to defeat Voldemort, a champion from their own realm. I had assumed that it would choose someone from a parallel universe, someone who has already faced Voldemort."

The fire is stoked by the old man's words. "Yeah, you can say that I've faced that bastard. It's been a few times, now. But I'm no hero; I can't help you."

"You have to!" Lily cries, "I designed that ritual myself! You've faced him, you have to help us!"

"I don't _have_ to do anything," Harry bites out. "And just because I've faced him, doesn’t mean I've won."

With that, a hush settles around the room. Sirius stops his rough housing, and all conversation ceases. Lily's passion decreases, transforming into confusion. "What are you talking about? Of course you have."

"Did you specify that your hero won his confrontations?" Harry scathingly replies, so sneeringly that he surprises some of his anger away by sounding so much like Snape.

"No…" the woman says, trailing off. "It was implied though. I mean, how can you confront You-Know-Who, without winning?"

Harry laughs humorlessly. Lily looks at him with mounting horror. "You say that I can't possibly understand how bad it is for you? Nearly every person in this room, in my dimension, is dead. The only ones who aren't dead, fled, over six months ago. I've survived as long as I have because I'm _lucky."_

He looks at everyone in the room, even those his mind shies away from, and is darkly satisfied by the ashen look on Dumbledore's face, the shock on everyone else's.

"I didn't win my war, how can you expect me to win yours?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on tags: I'll add characters/descriptors as they occur. There will be NO pairings for Hermione; like canon, Harry will have crushes, but not act on any. Any other pairings included are background and canon--James/Lily, Arthur/Molly Weasley, etc.
> 
> I'm also being purposefully vague and/or secretive about a lot of things. Be patient. I don't want to give anything away, but if you are terribly confused, let me know and I can try to be a little less so.
> 
> Update Schedule: this one might be more random; probably once every two weeks, by Sunday evening. Or so depending on my inspiration. So, the next chapter will be posted on or before 3/01/2015.


	2. C-Major 2

_"I didn't win my war, how can you expect me to win yours?"_

No one can meet his gaze, not Dumbledore, whose grandfatherly look had fallen flat in the face of his horror, nor Lily, who had so passionately been defending their actions but now has shaking hands.

Sirius can't meet his eyes, the frozen look of joviality melting slowly. Harry thinks this makes it easier to see these people as separate from his own, darkly amused at the way he was able to bring an entire room to its knees. Remus Lupin is furiously frowning at the wall, clearly thinking deeply on what Harry just said.

James… James Potter looks like someone stole his favorite Gryffindor scarf and replaced it with a Slytherin one, while Severus sneers at the room in general, though his eyes are wide and unseeing.

Even Mad-Eye Moody is looking unsettled, blue eye whirling maddeningly. Kingsley Shacklebolt, the most composed person Harry knows, leans heavily against the wall, covering his eyes with his hand, rubbing them tiredly.

Nymphadora Tonks' hair has turned white after she had dropped to sit on one of the beds, knocking over the bedside tray, but nobody notices.

Every single person in the room, and there are many more that Harry hasn't named, looks as if Harry has taken away their last hope. That digs at him, makes the pit of his stomach feel heavy--as if feeling guilty for robbing them of their security blanket!

He tries to push that feeling of guilt away, but all he manages is cool his own anger. As much as he wants to be angry, to stay angry, at these people for essentially kidnapping him, it's hard.

Harry knows what it feels like to be fighting a losing war--to only ever be on the defense. Isn't that exactly why he and Hermione had come up with the plan to go back in time?

Harry is a lot of things, but he isn't a hypocrite, so he just sighs inaudibly as he leans back to get more comfortable into his pillows. Sooner or later, one of them is going to get their bearings back and remember that he was there.

However, noting Dumbledore's lax grip on his wand, Harry wiggles his fingers and is gratified to feel the warmth spreading from this tips of his fingers throughout the rest of his body when the wand snaps to his hand.

The echo of a phoenix trill seems to snap Dumbledore back into the present, and the others surrounding him shake their heads, as if coming out of a daze. Dumbledore gazes at Harry, for once not putting on the grandfather act and instead looking his age.

An ugly feeling pulls on his conscience and Harry rolls his eyes heavenward at his own bleeding heart. "I may have lost," Harry begins, and it's like pulling teeth. He doesn’t want to say anything, doesn't want to help these people. But he is Harry Potter, and Harry Potter is not one to abandon someone who is opposing Voldemort, even if those people kidnapped him first. "But I'll do what I can to help."

Dumbledore regains a bit of his coloring, and laces his fingers across his lap. He looks down in confusion, as if just noticing that he was no longer holding Harry's wand. He sends a piercing look over his half moon spectacles, and Harry feels like a naughty school child, even though he's almost twenty and past the age of magical majority. He restrains the urge to hide his wand into his chest, and instead arches an eyebrow, staring once more at the old man's crooked nose.

"That, I believe, will be most appreciated, my boy," Dumbledore says, finally fully salvaging the last of his composure. "And I think the first thing we should do is to compare notes, as it were, of our worlds to see if any of your knowledge can help us here."

Harry shrugs, mostly agreeing. He can see that the rest of the room began picking itself back up from the fright he gave them, and is impressed with their resilience. Or, perhaps, they just trust the Professor to handle everything. He looks expectantly at Dumbledore, only to note that he is looking expectantly at him.

Harry, barely, refrains from rolling his eyes when a thought comes to him. "Well, I have a question. What is the date here?"

"June 16, 1994," Dumbledore says with a sparkle in his eye.

Harry's mouth dries out, and he gapes for a moment. " _That_ is certainly a change then. Considering it was 1999 in the dimension I just left," he says a little incredulously, before his mind goes into fierce overdrive.

Their ritual sent Hermione back to June 6, 1994, in their own dimension. Madam Pomfrey had said not an hour ago that he had been unconscious for, probably, days, though she hadn't specified how long exactly. What were the chances that he would be flung into the past as well, but only in a separate dimension?

Another insidious thought crept into his consciousness, this one even more damaging than the last. What if he could learn how they summoned him here, and somehow get back to his own dimension?

From the research he and Hermione conducted, he knows that time rituals, time magic in any capacity really, is very magical intensive--it requires almost unheard of amounts of magic to power. But since Harry has the reserves to spare… it wasn't so inconceivable.

They had also, very briefly, looked into dimension travel as their basis for time travel. Essentially, they were similar, since it required travel and boatloads of magic; their main differences were that one moved you through time, the other through space.

Harry comes back to himself when he notes the response to his declaration that he comes from the future. Lily scoffs, but looks interested despite herself. "That is curious. I'd love to know why the ritual pulled you from a different time, when it wasn't specified for time travel, only universal," she mutters.

Harry shrugs, pretending that he doesn’t understand what she's saying. "Why don't you tell me more about your war here, and I can tell you if it's anything like ours."

There are some subtle glances exchanged between the present members of the Order of the Phoenix, but the stubborn tilt of Harry's jaw and the glint in his eye promises his silence in the matter.

What follows is a piecemeal explanation of the war on this side of the divide between worlds. Harry's gaze bounces from person to person as they add their own facts and interpretations of the war here.

It boils down to this: Voldemort was never defeated, not even temporarily. But suddenly, the attacks pulled back in the early 1980's, trickling down to a few attacks every few weeks or months. Yet, in the past three years, he has been making a comeback, with more bold and brazen attacks, and his takeover of the Ministry is probably a decade in the making but imminent.

Harry's careful to keep his expression interested, not invested, but it's hard. It's clear that this world doesn’t have a Boy-Who-Lived, this world never had a Philosopher's stone hidden within the depths of Hogwarts, and this world didn't have a Basilisk attacking muggleborns under Dumbledore's Headmastership. This world didn't have an escaped Azkaban prisoner after a traitorous rat and a Hogwarts surrounded by Dementors.

This world won't have the Triwizard Tournament, with dragons, mer-people and a sphinx in a maze. In many ways, this world was calmer; but there were different things that happened. There was more suspicion of spies, more of a cold war, as Harry thought about it.

When the noise had died down a bit, the room sort of sighed, and settled down to see what Harry had to say in response. He hadn't said anything during the explanation, didn't ask any questions, and just listened.

He thought carefully about what he wanted to say, but there was no hiding that unless he gave them a little of his world, he couldn't really grasp the true depths of this war--most notably, if there was a Chosen one in this dimension or not. Just because no one had mentioned it, didn't mean that one did not exist.

"So, I take it there isn't a prophecy in this world?" he finally decides with, and he's almost impressed with his ability to render an entire group of people mute with a single line. If the faces surrounding him weren't so panicked, he'd probably think it was funny--instead, it's just kind of sad.

Dumbledore clears his throat, though he had kept his composure better than before. If only Hermione was there to see, because she was never going to believe that he had stumped Dumbledore not once, but twice in a half hour period, when he told her. _If_ he can tell her, he corrects in his mind with a grimace. "What makes you think that?" He asks calmly.

Both of Harry's eyebrows raise. "You mean, besides the fact that _everyone_ confirmed it with their reactions?"

Dumbledore whips around, a severe expression on his face. The only person to _not_ react to Harry's words was Snape, and Harry only figured that was because despite the older man's tendency to react with anger to anything regarding Harry, he _is_ still a spy and his ability to keep his emotions hidden should be second nature. "Perhaps a few of you can start your patrols early?" he asks archly, and the entire room of adults look down at their feet like scolded children.

Most of the Order shuffles from the room, eyes still downcast. After a moment, the only ones remaining are Moody, Snape, Lily, Remus and Dumbledore himself. Harry tracks Sirius and James as they leave, his heart thudding in his chest and he barely stops himself from reacting, or calling out to them.

Dumbledore watches him with an unreadable expression, and nods his head for Harry to continue. "Well, we had a prophecy, too, of course. Except our Chosen One died at the Massacre at Hogwarts, last year."

Harry is being purposefully misleading, because he isn't ready to come clean just yet, if at all.

"That's impossible," Lily says, shaking her head. "The ritual was to bring someone with the ability to take down Voldemort."

Harry looks at her with a raised brow. "Did you specify it as the " _ability_ to take down the Dark Lord," or "the one _to_ take down the Dark Lord?" he asks, though he is sure of the answer.

"The ability," she says, a little horrified.

Harry shrugs, letting his gaze wander to Remus, who is watching him with a sort of frown on his face. "I'm not bad with a wand. And I don't particularly believe in prophecies. So like I said, I'll try to do what I can to help."

"Albus," she says to Dumbledore urgently, completely ignoring Harry--who just rolls his eyes. "What can we do? If he isn't _chosen…"_

"I've always thought Divination was a wooly subject," Dumbledore says, keeping his gaze on Harry, despite Lily's appalled expression. Harry snorts, completely unable to help himself. At Dumbledore's questioning gaze Harry shrugs.

"Sorry. But the McGonagall of my world said those precise words, once." _And, the fact that I don't believe you for a second,_ he finishes in his mind, because he can see the calculation in Dumbledore's gaze.

Dumbledore just smiles genially, though Harry isn't fooled. He thinks he likes Dumbledore better now, because he can appreciate and see the machinations. Of course, he hated it when he was younger, but what can he say? He's apparently gotten masochistic with age, if he finds this fun.

"Alright, so we have a prophecy here," Harry says instead, trying not to dwell on that thought. "And no Chosen One." He pauses, grimacing, before plowing through. "Did you, perchance, _have_ a Chosen One, at one point?"

Dumbledore's gaze sharpens on Harry's features, before he takes a deep breath. "There were a few boys who matched the general description. But, they have either not been marked, or were killed by some of his followers." Dumbledore has a sad look about him, and even Harry's heart beats heavily.

So, he and Neville probably no longer exist in this world, he thinks mechanically, before pushing away the thought. Lily had gone ashen white again, and he feels a pang of remorse for bringing that up. "What about the Chamber of Secrets? Has that been opened again?"

What little movement there was in the room immediately stills. Moody and Remus slowly share a look of agitation before looking at Dumbledore.

It was Lily, however, who spoke. "What are you talking about? The Chamber has never been found."

Harry raises an eyebrow before looking at Dumbledore, a bit incredulous. "Your Order doesn't know it was opened in the 1940's by Voldemort? That the Basilisk within killed Myrtle?"

Lily slowly dropped herself into a seat, her hand slowly coming up to cover her mouth. "My god," she mutters, her gaze slowly moving to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, for his part, looks nonplussed. "It didn't seem pertinent," he says, only a little defensively. "But there is a Basilisk within?"

"Oh yeah," Harry nods emphatically. "Sixty foot one, at least. It petrified almost a dozen students in my second year."

"So," Snape says, and then clears his throat slightly when he coughs on the word. "So you are saying that the Dark Lord somehow returned to the school, only to petrify students, not kill them?" By the end of the question, Snape has regained some color to his cheeks, and his composure enough to sneer.

"No," Harry said, and he figures he can go for broke and surprise Dumbledore a third time. "I'm saying that Voldemort's diary, from when he was in school, possessed a student, who perpetrated these attacks because that hunk of soul in the book compelled her to. I suppose this world has his horcruxes, too?"

Lily slips from her chair in a dead faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: New chapter will be posted on or before the evening of 3/15/2015.


	3. C-Major 3

Harry's actually surprised by the reactions of those around him, Lily's in particular. Of anyone, he expected Snape, or Remus perhaps (due to his extensive knowledge of Defense Against the Dark Arts), to know what a horcrux is.

But to see both the aforementioned men looking quizzical for a brief moment, before rushing to Lily's side, is surprising for Harry, though it really shouldn't been—this Lily seems to a part of the "inner circle," of Order member. This Lily also has the fanatical look about her of a researcher (Hermione wore that look quite well—and he stops his mind from making any other connections there, giving himself a little shake that travels up his spine).

Plus, she had said that it was _her_ ritual that brought him here. An odd sort of bitterness mixed with awe churns in his gut at that thought; anger at having been essentially kidnapped, but amazed at seeing so many people he cares about happy and _alive._

As Remus and Snape revive Lily with an _ennervate_ (Harry winces; from experience he knows that being revived after falling unconscious by natural means always leaves him with a killer headache), Harry notes that the joviality has dropped from the Headmaster's face and he is looking stricken once more. The old man pulls himself together to look at Harry calculatingly, coldly, and stands up to tower over the bed.

"What do you know about that?" Dumbledore asks with every ounce of power at his disposal, the magic swirling up around him.

Harry has never before been on the receiving end of what he likes to call Dumbledore's "game face." He's seen it in action a few times, facing off against Voldemort, or when he came across a particularly dim-witted Ministry worker who got in his way (cough-Fudge-cough).

It certainly unnerves him, but he's also been on the receiving end of _Voldemort's_ death glares, and despite how much magic is infusing the space between them, Dumbledore still looks like a grandfather and is nowhere near as intimidating as Voldemort.

Yet, Harry buries the nervousness and arches a brow back at the older man. "You mean besides the _seven_ he had in my world?"

Dumbledore falls bonelessly back into his chair with a _whump._ The aura around him drops off as he folds into himself. Harry starts to feel a niggling of guilt—despite how much it amuses him to be able to say that he's brought the Great Albus Dumbledore to his knees with knowledge, it can't be good for the old man's heart.

Even Mad-Eye, leaning against the wall behind the revived Lily, is looking ashen.

 _Oops,_ he thinks to himself, resolving to be at least a little more tactful in the future. Though, really, he _shouldn't_ feel any guilt for what kind of havoc he causes these people. But it's hard, because they look so much like those he cares for deeply.

"There are _seven?_ " Dumbledore breathes out, sounding bereft. At this, Lily stirs a little, and hearing her mentor say those words, she loses her breath again.

"I take it you know that they are?" Harry asks a little rhetorically, but he is a little gratified to see the color return to Lily's face as she gears up for a lecture.

"Those—those abominations! What do _you_ know about them?" she asks him accusingly. The stare chips away a little at the child Harry in his mind, even though he keeps telling himself and telling himself that what these people think doesn't matter to him.

That's the litany that runs through his head, somewhat unconsciously. _These aren't my family. These aren't my friends. These aren't my people._ He doesn't think about it, but whenever one of these doppelgangers does something, anything that either reminded him of the one _he_ knows, or looks at him like that… he feels small and the mantra gets louder.

"I know that he made seven in our world, since seven is—" Harry cuts off when Lily's anger smolders and her analytical mind takes over and she finishes his thought.

"Seven is one of the most magically powerful numbers," Lily nods, looking thoughtful, though she's still a little shaky. "But, splitting ones soul that much, would make for an awfully unstable host."

Remus gasps quietly, finally understanding just what they are talking about. Even Snape looks wary, and Harry can only guess that Dumbledore is feeling glad that he kicked the rest of the Order out before Harry dropped that little bombshell.

With the amount of information that the old man likes to keep close to the chest, Harry figures that since only Lily here knows about even the existence of a horcrux, Dumbledore really hasn't told anyone else. Or, perhaps Dumbledore didn't even know for sure if Voldemort had horcruxes in this dimension.

"Oh yeah," Harry says with a shrug. "He's a whole bag of crazy in my world. It made it very difficult to predict his next move."

"I only had theories," Dumbledore finally says, coming back to himself and pinning Harry with another calculating look. "But I never was able to confirm or deny it. Are you saying you were able to in your universe?"

"Yeah, after the Chamber of Secrets incident. It possessed a student and almost killed her in my second year, or last year here. He was almost fully corporeal when we found the diary and realized what was going on. A basilisk fang, and no more shade of evil," Harry says with a shrug. "I guess in our universe, that was your first clue as to their existence. I mean, beyond knowing that _something_ was keeping the old wanker alive. Concrete evidence. I don't know what you did to study it to confirm that it was a horcrux or not, just that you hadn't started your search for the others until after that."

"Indeed," the old man says with a curious look on his face. "Here, I have been bouncing a few theories around on his supposed immortality, but again, I've had no confirmation. I can say with a fair bit of certainty that he does not have seven in this dimension, because while Voldemort is, as you put it, a 'bag of crazy,' he is certainly not as insane. Evil yes, but ever the genius."

"Huh," Harry says, leaning back against the pillows (yet he doesn't remember sitting forward to begin with). "I don't know which is more terrifying. An evil, insane psychopath, or an evil, genius psychopath?"

He only has to imagine it for just a second, before he shudders. "That isn't a comparison worth making."

Even Dumbledore is looking a little anxious. "That is a disturbing picture you're painting," he says, surprisingly frank.

"It's a disturbing thought," Harry agrees. He closes his eye as his jaw cracks trying to contain a yawn.

Dumbledore notices, and while Mad-Eye gives him a suspicious look, he doesn’t say anything, as Dumbledore arranges his robes about him as he stands. "I assume you are still quite tired after your ordeal," Dumbledore says, motioning for Lily and Snape to follow him as he moves to stop at the end of the bed. "You should get some sleep, my boy, and we can continue this discussion tomorrow."

Dumbledore then gives the wand in Harry's lap, a stern look. "I am trusting you, leaving you here with that. Don't let my trust be misplaced."

Harry just held his hands up innocently, knowing that he wasn't about to go attacking these people in the middle of the night, though there was no way for the old man to know that.

"Then, have a good night. Ask Madam Pomfrey to get the elves to send you up some dinner," he says as an afterthought, as Harry's stomach proclaims its agreement.

"Goodnight, Headmaster," is all Harry says in return as the old man walks slowly out the ward, Mad-Eye, Remus and Snape following him.

It's only then that Harry notices Lily still standing at the foot of his bed, looking at him with an indescribable expression on her face. "What?" he asks self-consciously, pulling his blankets up over his body.

"What did you say your name was again?" the witch asks quietly, searchingly.

He has to think for a moment, because he can't even begin to remember what lie he told with her looking at him like that, before it come to him with an inaudible groan. "Evan Grim," he finally says, even though the searching look never leaves her face.

"I'm sorry, but there is something so familiar about you. I must know your counterpart here, and I just don't realize it," she finally settles on, her brow furrowed.

"I have one of those faces," Harry says, and in his mind he is laughing a little hysterically and he is only holding onto his composure by the skin of his teeth. It isn't like he can say, _'Hey, you probably recognize me because in another universe, I was your kid. And, you know, I look sort of like your husband.'_ But even as he thinks it, he knows that it isn't true.

He constantly heard, living at Hogwarts, just how much he looked like his father, but with his mother's eyes. Almost everyone who knew them, said it to him, at least once.

But that isn't the case anymore. He doesn't wear glasses, so that isn't an homage to his father—though he still _has_ his glasses, he just doesn't think he should be wearing them at this point, considering James Potter was _alive_ in this universe.

From what he gathered from seeing James, Harry is also shorter and leaner than his father, likely due to years of malnutrition growing up with the Dursley's. Not that Mrs. Weasley didn't do her damndest to counteract the damage his body endured in his formative years, but it was certainly an uphill battle.

As for the rest of his features, well. Harry has, in the last six months or so, experimented with Human Transfiguration, the most dangerous of disciplines because it often holds deadly consequences for when it goes wrong—and it goes wrong very easily.

His eyes are still green, but the weight of the future weighs heavily on them, so they are a dimmer, more leafy green, than the brilliant emeralds they once were. His eye shape is also a little more slanted, his cheek bones more defined, and his nose smaller.

Unfortunately, the first face he chose was similar to that of his godfather, Sirius. So, despite being a half-blood, he now has a few of the trademark facial features of the pureblood elite. Even though he originally dabbled in human transfiguration so they could blend in to the non-magical world without being recognized, the effect was quite striking.

But that translated into him having a slightly different "base face" every time he tried a new disguise, since he is nowhere near a master at Transfiguration. Yet, he still looks close to how he used to, just with subtle differences. Not even his hair is as crazy as it once was (though it is still quite unmanageable)—he's found that growing out just a few inches gives him a scruffy, albeit less messy, appearance.

"I suppose," Lily murmurs, then shakes the topic from her mind, still looking at him thoughtfully, though guilt has crept into her façade. "We really are desperate, you know?"

Harry looks at the woman, and feels his heart ache for this woman who could have been his mother. If Harry hadn't been the Chosen One, if there was no prophecy, he would have been raised by Lily. His world's Lily, he corrects, even within his own mind. Because it is experiences that shape us, and this Lily has been through different things than his mother.

"I know," he finally says. "I just wish your solution hadn't been me. Like I said, I'll do what I can to help, but I can't promise I'll win."

"We don't need a promise," Lily assures him, though is still looking doubtful. "Well, most of us are. But, I think, just your word that you'll help, is a lot more than we've had. And it certainly can't hurt," she says with a tumultuous smile.

Harry can think of about a dozen different ways it can hurt, mostly to him, but he doesn't' say anything in response, only smiles. When she still lingers, he raises an eyebrow. "Is there something else I can help you with?" he asks, and he's only being a little sarcastic—mostly he wants her to look less unsure of herself, more confident.

Her back straightens, and though she still has a frown on her face, she takes the plunge. "My son… I had a son, who was k-killed by Voldemort when he was just a baby," she starts, the beginnings of tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she won't let them fall. "You mentioned the prophecy—the Chosen One. Harry, did—was he…"

She trails off, looking uncertain as to what she really wants to ask. Harry closes his eyes against the pain that gathers in his chest, but he ignores it—and lies to comfort the still grieving mother. "We were roommates—Gryffindors. He survived the attack by Voldemort when he was a baby, but his parents were killed in the conflict. I don't know much about his home life, but he is—was—a good friend."

"W-was?" the woman pleads. Harry tries to steel his heart, but it's hard. Every part of him wants to run to her, comfort her and beg for her attention, to finally have a mother. He's mentally screaming his mantra at this point; _these aren't my family. These aren't my friends. These aren't my people._

"Yeah. I'm sorry M-Mrs. Potter, but he was killed a few months ago," he stutters, almost slipping and calling the woman "Mum."

"Oh," the witch merely says. When she catches the worried look he sends her, she laughs, a little brittle. "Don’t worry about me. He's been gone a long time here; I've managed to accept that. I guess I was hoping… that if he _was_ the Chosen One, then perhaps my ritual would pick _him_ up."

Harry manages an exaggerated look of affront, to which she laughs a little at, even though his mouth is completely dry.

"Anyway—thanks. For letting me know. And if you need anything, just give me a holler, and I'll see what we can do," Lily says as she starts to move for the darkened door.

The ward is lit only by torches at this point, the sun having set while they were talking. "Actually," Harry says, almost coughing over the words past him immovable and dried out tongue. "Actually, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, can I have you find my bag? Someone said that it, er, passed over with me."

At this, Lily gains an interested look, and she smiles at him. "That bag has cost Remus a lot of hassle, trying to figure out how it works. I'll see what I can do. Good night."

"Night," Harry calls absently after her, even though his mind is a million miles away.

He thinks about intent, long after she's left. It was her ritual that brought him here, so she must have been one of the matrices that powered the spell.

What if her intent, while conducting this stupid ritual, summoned him here, over any of the other parameters?

What if the reason he was chosen, from all the other Chosen Ones, from the other Harry Potters of the many universes, was because this Lily Potter so badly yearned to find her son, and he was swept up in the madness?

And he thinks, would he have been summoned, if he hadn't been conducting that ritual to send Hermione back?

Would he have this opportunity, this second chance, if he hadn't been so close to giving up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter will be available on or before midnight, 3/29/2015.


	4. C-Major 4

Harry's surprised to find himself waking up, not remembering having fallen asleep the night before.

He supposes he _was_ pretty exhausted—even now, his magic comes to him sluggishly, and with the pain of a pulled muscle. But he must have dropped into unconsciousness between one thought and the next because light is filtering through the windows at the end of the ward, the kind of early morning sunlight.

He stretches out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It feels like a dream. Like, he'll wake up, only to find out the last day—the last year—was only a dream.

That when Madam Pomfrey leaves her quarters, she'll recognize him as Harry Potter, her most obstinate patient, and not Evan Grim, dimension traveler.

That everything that happened during the Battle for Hogwarts, and everything after, was only a fantasy—a disturbing fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless.

The wish leaves a bitter feeling in the pit of his stomach, so he groans, and sits up. Even though he is still tired, he doesn’t want to sleep anymore. Upon moving his pillows into a more comfortable sitting position, he notices Madam Pomfrey gliding down the ward, a professional but distant look on her face.

That small hope dies because whenever he was in the Hospital Wing in his dimension, Madam Pomfrey always had a hassled look about her, especially towards him. That isn't to say she didn't like him—she just didn't like that he was constantly injured and spending time in the Hospital Wing.

"Mr. Grim, how are you feeling this morning?" she asks, waving her wand over him and clicking her teeth at whatever results came up.

Harry shrugs. "I feel fine. My magic aches a little, but that's not something a sugary meal can't fix."

Madam Pomfrey arches a brow as she looks at him, and if Harry _hadn't_ spent a good deal of time in the Hospital Wing in the past, he might even be intimidated by it. "Really," he asserts when she still looks skeptical.

"If you say so," she mutters, waving her wand over him again in a grand gesture, and his entire body feels light for a moment before he regains himself.

"I suppose you're right," she admits, the deeper scan she just cast not reporting any anomalies. "But I'll still keep you here for observation until your magic stabilizes, just in case." She pauses, waiting for him to complain.

But Harry, who's done this song and dance so many times it's old hat by now, merely nods his head in understanding.

"Well alright then," she says with a decisive nod. "I'll get one of the House Elves to send up some breakfast for you." She leaves his bedside, but turns back and opens her mouth. Shaking her head, she snaps her jaw shut, turning again and leaving for her office.

Harry grins a little; Madam Pomfrey is so used to hearing people complain about staying in the Hospital Wing, that she doesn't expect her patients to comply. Even in this world, apparently, she doesn't know how to handle him.

Without his audience, the grin Harry sports quickly drips from his face. Yet, he is distracted from wallowing without something to occupy is overactive imagination when a House Elf pops to his bedside, carrying a tray.

"Hello," Harry greets, and the poor creature is so startled she almost drops the platter. Harry makes an aborted motion to help, only stopping because it was clear that, sitting back in his bed the way he was, he would never make it in time.

Plus, even that small, quick motion caused his stomach to roll riotously and his face to drain of all color. "Sorry for startling you," he says, leaning over to look at her and supporting himself on shaking arms.

The little elf turns to Harry, as her eyes widen impossibly, and, horrifyingly, begin to glisten."Young Mister apologizes to Mipsy?" she says wonderingly, as if she doesn't believe it.

"It's nice to meet you Mipsy. I'm H-Evan," Harry says, instead of replying to the young elf. He's found that it's always better (for him and his sanity) that he ignore the worship he seems to instill in House Elves. "Is that breakfast for me?" he asks quickly when the elf, intriguingly, turns purple and looks about to hyperventilate at his first comment.

House Elves have always been a point of contention between Hermione and himself. While Harry doesn't condone slavery, he's found that House Elves are powerful allies, and they genuinely want to help. Hermione, however, is staunchly— _stubbornly—_ against what she sees as slavery and brainwashing.

She's certainly mellowed, at least a little from her S.P.E.W. days, from her acquaintance with Dobby and Kreacher, but she is devoutly against the practice of owning another sentient being—a viewpoint that Harry can certainly understand.

The little elf composes herself, and meets his gaze again, an adoring look on her features. "Yes. Miss Poppy told Mipsy to bring Young Mister his breakfast," she says shyly.

Harry smiles, though it is probably more of a grimace. "Well, thanks Mipsy. I'm starving, and I'm sure it'll be delicious."

The young elf turns purple again, and Harry realizes that she's _blushing. Oh, thank Merlin Hermione isn't here to see this,_ Harry mutters darkly in his head, knowing that despite her views on owning House Elves, Hermione would get a kick out of this.

The elf squeaks something he can't quite make out, before placing the tray at his bedside and popping away, leaving Harry staring at the spot she just was with something akin to bemusement.

"Well, you certainly have a way with the ladies," a voice, laden with dry amusement, says from the other side of the bed.

Startled, Harry whips around, again feeling that rush of vertigo he felt earlier. His vision darkens around the edge, stars crossing his vision. He steadies himself on his arms, once more leaning forward and staring at his lap.

"Hey, are you OK?" the voice says, the amusement gone, and Harry feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Fine, fine," Harry wheezes, regaining his equilibrium as his vision comes back. He takes another deep breath and—gently—throws himself back onto his pillows, and out of the grip on his shoulder.

He recognizes the voice, so he isn't surprised to see Remus Lupin at his bedside. He's still looking at Harry with concern on his worn features, but Harry waves it away. "Really, just a little vertigo."

"That looked like more than just a 'little vertigo,'" the older man says, his voice dry.

Harry merely shrugs his shoulders, before leaning over—slowly—and grabbing the platter, placing it on his lap. It's a decadent spread, pancakes slathered in syrup, fresh fruit, eggs, rashers, and potatoes. Harry picks at the fruit, looking up at his once-Professor expectantly.

"Well," Professor Lupin coughs, before offering his hand. "I don't think we were formally introduced yesterday. I'm—"

"Remus Lupin," Harry finishes with a smile. Professor Lupin looks momentarily surprised before Harry explains, "You were the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor during my third year. Best professor we had, bar none."

Interestingly, Lupin colors slightly, looking intrigued. "Really," he wonders, and then looks a little guilty. "Perhaps our worlds are very different. You see—"

Again, Harry interrupts. "You're a werewolf," he says simply, noting the scars and well worn clothes. Professor Lupin in this dimension, however, has less grey hair and there is a vitality to him that the Lupin in his dimension never had.

"How did you know?" Lupin asks quietly, searching Harry's face for what he assumes is disgust, yet finding nothing other than a genuine honesty.

"I can give you many explanations for that. I don't know how different our two worlds are, but my best friend is Hermione Granger. She'd be just finishing her third year here, and she figured it out within the year that you were teaching. You were also in the Order, so it's something I heard about there."

Harry is being honest, but he isn't being entirely truthful. To tell Remus, any Remus, that Harry found out Remus was a werewolf because Remus hadn't had his Wolfsbane… Best not mention that.

"I see," the older wizard replied, looking askance at Harry, as if he knew the younger man wasn't being entirely truthful. "In any case, I didn't come to speak with you about that. Instead," Remus trails off, presenting Harry with Hermione's beaded bag. "Lily told me you asked for this, and I'm here to deliver."

"Wicked," Harry mutters. He brings the bag close to him, and fiddles his fingers a bit with a sigh of relief. The charms and wards keeping the bag locked are all intact, which means everything is still in the bag. "Cheers."

"I, ah, actually wanted to ask you a few questions about that bag of yours—particularly the charms keeping it closed," Remus begins, his sharp eyes having caught the movement of Harry's fingers. "I've spent the last week or so trying to open it, if only to understand the charms better."

Harry smiles, a little rueful, and shakes his head—though he really doesn't buy that Remus was _only_ studying the bag for the charms. "Sorry, I can't help you. I didn’t spell it. Hermione did, as it's her bag. All I know about it is that it's enlarged with an undetectable expansion charm and it only opens for either of us. There is something about magic recognition, but I couldn't honestly tell you what."

Remus looks contemplative, a little downcast that Harry wasn't of more help. "That's quite alright. You've certainly given me something to think about, at the very least. Though I can't help but wonder about my counterpart in your world?"

Harry gives Remus a searching look as he finishes chewing the last of the strawberries from his plate. "Do you really want to know?" Harry intones.

Remus must catch something in Harry's tone, because he is suddenly, less curious and more apprehensive. But he isn't a Marauder, a Gryffindor, for nothing because he straightens with a resolved look on his face as he nods.

Harry sighs. "You taught me many things, during your tenure as a Hogwarts professor and beyond. As a third year, you helped me learn the Patronus charm. After, when I became a part of the Order, you were always willing to lend an ear. But, you did pass away during the massacre at Hogwarts. Along with your wife."

"Wife?" Remus asks faintly as he leans forward, just a little.

With a tired look, Harry explains. "Your wife. In my dimension, you married Tonks, just last year."

Remus's expression shutters, and he frowns at Harry. "You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

Harry rolls his eyes. "Yes. Because clearly I have nothing better to do than fantasize about your love life."

Embarrassed, Professor Lupin steps back with a blush. "Sorry, it's just…" he trails off, and shrugs self consciously.

Harry waves the apology away. "I imagine a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing about their counterparts. I can't guarantee I can answer every question, since I was only marginally acquainted with many of the older members," Harry explains, getting started on his pancakes.

The sugar-packed syrup does the trick and jumpstarts his energy levels. He has already finished the tea at this point, and the sugar only amplifies the effects of the caffeine. Speaking around the food he's stuffed in his mouth, he continues, "Plus, from what I can tell, our worlds don't have a common history. There are similar events, of course, and similar people, but beyond that… I can't guarantee anything."

Remus looks interested and he nods. "Yes, from what little you mentioned last night, there are some serious deviations between our two worlds, especially in regards to the war."

Harry agrees, quickly polishing off the remainder of the food on his platter and leaning back with a sigh. Remus still looks like he has something to say, yet is hesitant for some reason. "What's up?" Harry asks.

Looking startled, then sheepish, Remus grins a small smile. "It's nothing. Not important."

Raising an eyebrow, Harry snorts. "If you say so. Hey, actually, I have a question; I forgot to ask last night. Can you tell me more about the ritual that brought me here? Like, if it's possible to reverse it?"

"Why do you want to know that?" Remus asks through narrowed eyes.

The other brow rises in Harry's incredulity. He nearly smacked himself the night before when he realized he never actually asked if there was a way home—to Hermione. "Because I was effectively kidnapped by a group of people wanting me to face a raving psychopath? What did you think was going to happen when this was all over?"

Remus has the grace to look contrite as remorse filters through his eyes. "I'm sorry, it's impossible. The gate was a one-way ticket. I don't know the specifics, but I do know that. I don’t think, any of us, actually thought that far ahead."

Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, Harry tries to nod. "Right, perfect. Well, how about—No," Harry says, shaking his head. "I don't believe that there's no way back. I believe that _you_ might not know how, or anyone here, but I refuse to believe that it's impossible. I've built my _life_ on impossible." Harry gives Remus a sharp look. "Can you get me a copy of the ritual that brought me here? I can try and reverse engineer it to see if there are any clues there. At the very least, I'm gonna need access to the library."

Remus looks at Harry with wide, golden eyes. If Harry had any experience in Legilimency, he'd blush at the comparison Remus makes between Harry and Lily in his mind, in their steadfastness to believe in the impossible. "I can try," Remus offers, and it looks like that is the best Harry is going to get out of Remus as a definitive.

Soon after Harry extracts that quasi-promise, Remus leaves, citing a prior appointment, though Harry is sure that the older wizard is merely going to report his findings to either his friends, or Dumbledore, or both.

_Why_ hadn't _I thought about a way home last night?_ Harry thinks to himself, setting the empty food tray back on the bedside table. Eventually, Harry figures he must have not considered it, because it hadn't really sunk in yet that he was in a different universe, and in the past. Harry wouldn't _want_ to go back, if he was sent back to the future of his world.

But here… moving sideways through space would be so much easier than sending someone back in time. Being confronted with all these ghosts discombobulated him last night. But he's thinking clearer now, and he knows that this is one of the concessions he's going to wring out of the Order for his expertise and help in fighting ol' Voldie.

Harry moves so he is sitting on the edge of his bed, resting his feet on the floor. They carry his weight, if only just barely, and he sighs in relief. He quickly makes his way to the bathroom, and once he's washing his hands, he looks at himself in the mirror above the sink.

He's looking gaunt, from his time spent in the forest. His hair is too long, his eyes too dull. He removes the contacts, and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.

When he opens his eyes, his resolve hardens. He leans against the sink, both arms supporting his weight.

He's _going_ to find Hermione again— _his_ Hermione. "Just try and stop me," he promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter to be posted on or before midnight of 4/12/2015.


	5. C-Major 5

After a long shower, he pulls clean clothes from his bag and gives them a sniff. He frowns a little before shrugging, deftly changing in the small bathroom.

Dressed, Harry feels much more human. Less like a patient, more like an able bodied wizard, anyway. His magic still flows sluggishly, and when he moves too quickly he gets a dizzying case of vertigo, but just wearing his own clothes offers a comfort like no other.

As he steps from the bathroom, he blinks in confusion. Buzzing about the ward is Madam Pomfrey, along with a few members of the Order, including Tonks, Snape and Lily Potter. None of them notice him as Madam Pomfrey, with increasing pitch, gesticulates wildly around the ward.

Harry's eyebrows creep up his forehead as he leans against the doorframe, the beginnings of a smile curling around his lips. No one is facing him, as the doorway to the bathroom is at the end of the ward where the large windows are, and Lily tries—and fails—to calm down the medi-witch. Tonks is standing in the open doorway to the outer corridor, looking back and forth as if searching for something.

Hands crossed over his chest, Snape is standing at Harry's end of the ward a few paces away from Lily, his foot tapping in impatience. Harry tosses his head from side to side, thinking, before sidling up to Snape, his own arms crossing over his chest. "So what's the dilemma?"

Amazingly, the man beside him flinches, as if surprised, his black eyes widening as he snaps his head over to look at Harry. Though he quickly schools his expression, Harry is flabbergasted to see the snarky potions professor looking so unguarded.

Snape opens his mouth to speak, before a smirk creeps across his expression. "Oh," he drawls, a wicked light shining in his eyes. "Nothing much. Just looking for our missing dimension traveler. Pomfrey came out of her office to find him gone and has mustered a search party."

"You got roped into being a member of the search party?" Harry asks, amused.

Snape snorts, but there is nothing amused about his glinting eyes. "Something like that," he mutters.

"Severus, where—" Lily begins, turning from Madam Pomfrey, but cutting off when she catches sight of just who Snape was standing with. "You!"

Harry merely grins past the pang in his chest at the sight of Lily. "Me. What's all this about?" he asks innocently.

Madam Pomfrey, having heard Lily's exclamation, turns and her face slackens in her shock before fury alights her features. "You!" she screeches, pointing a shaking finger at Harry.

By this point, Harry is having a hard time keeping the grin off his face, and he knows he's showing far too many teeth than he should in the face of the medi-witch's anger. "Me," he agrees again, and he can see from the corner of his eye that Snape is almost cackling in his mirth at the anger of the others.

"Where did you go?! We've been looking for you for ages! The monitoring wards on your bed snapped, and by the time I made it from my office, you were gone!" Madam Pomfrey yells, the wand in her hand shooting sparks.

The smile falls from Harry's face as he takes a step back, though amusement still glistens in his eyes. "I was in the bathroom. You said I had to stay for observation, and I am totally fine with that. But do you know how long it had been since I had actually taken a shower? With, like, running water— _hot_ running water—and not just an overpowered cleaning charm or a _scourgify_?"

Harry shudders while Lily seems to have gotten over her anger and instead looks curious. "I thought _scourgify_ is an inanimate cleaning spell? I didn't know it could be used on humans."

Harry refrains from rolling his eyes, but it’s a close thing. "Not really the point I was trying to make," he mutters under his breath. "It can be used on a person. Just very, _very_ carefully. And even then, it doesn’t exactly feel good to have every particle of dust or dirt forcibly removed from your body. But it was the best we had access to on the run."

Lily still looks intrigued, like she really wants to comment on Harry's last words, but Madam Pomfrey impatiently clears her throat, her wand finally lowered and her cheeks are flushed in embarrassment. "Ah, I'm sorry then, Mr. Grim, for overreacting. I don't think anyone _ever_ has actually agreed with my diagnosis to stay. And considering you—"

The matron cuts herself off awkwardly, as if realizing just what she was about to say was rude. Harry smiles conciliatorily, showing there are no hard feelings. "And considering I'm an unknown during wartime, and therefore not trusted to go wandering off through the castle by myself? I'd judge you if you _didn't_ have such suspicion and caution. Though, I do trust that I can at the very least be trusted to use the bathroom by myself from now on, without having to call the cavalry?" he says with a smile, partly joking and partly serious.

Tonks had wandered over from the open doors to the corridor beyond, her hair the usual bubblegum pink. She gives him a long look, from top to bottom, her eyebrow cocked and a smirk on her face. "I don't know about that. I think we'll have to keep an _eye_ on you, wherever you go."

Harry cringes, just a little. "Please don't send Mad-Eye to peep on me in the shower," he pleads, a little green.

Tonks cackles, delighted that Harry understood her joke. Harry watches as, over Tonks' shoulder, Lily rolls her eyes and drops her face into her hands. " _Don't_ encourage her," Lily mutters, but not quiet enough as Harry can hear it under Tonks' laughter.

Harry smiles, a little bemusedly, as he chalks this up to a difference between worlds. He knew Tonks quite well in his home dimension, and while she had an excellent sense of humor, always able to laugh at herself when she was clumsy, she wasn't quite this… bad.

Harry figures it might have something to do with the fact that in this dimension, Sirius never went to prison during her formative years. So as an impressionable child, Tonks must have been exposed to his serious/Sirius sense of humor and learned to emulate that.

It's actually a bit horrifying, now that Harry thinks about it. If Harry had been raised by Sirius, _Harry_ would have that kind of humor. A tingle travels up his spine as the hairs on the back of his neck raise. _That would be terrible,_ Harry thinks to himself with dry humor even as a corner of his mind gibbers at the image, _Hermione wouldn't have given me the time of day if I had such inappropriate humor._

"Evan? What's wrong?" Harry snaps out of his thoughts at the query directed to him from Lily. Apparently, as he was lost in that disturbing image, Lily had gotten over her exasperation and sidled up to him. Tonks, having found a better audience in Snape, began to badger him as they both left the ward without another word to the rest of them.

Harry shakes himself from where his mind had gone, his face pale and his hands a little shaky. "Ah, I'm fine. Tonks certainly has an _acquired_ sense of humor here, huh?" he asks nonchalantly, fishing for information to see if his hypothesis was correct.

The disgruntled look on Lily's face told Harry everything he needed to know—long suffering and it clearly visited often by the tired look in her eyes. "Unfortunately, despite _all_ our best efforts, she was infected at a young age by Black and we've yet to find a cure to his particular brand of crazy."

Though she says this in a tormented way, there is a certain amount of fondness in her tone that belies her seriousness. With his fears confirmed, Harry barely represses another shudder. He's sure it would have been fun, and _so_ much better than living with the Dursley's, but he doesn't think he'd be able to survive such deadly humor.

Lily then gives him a curious look, and he can see as the question forms in her mind. "That's one of the major changes between our worlds," he says simply, not really answering her unspoken question.

As they spoke, Madam Pomfrey slinks back to her office, sheepish and embarrassed at her overreaction, though she does poke her head from her office, subtly of course, to watch them talk.

"Oh," Harry says, again not letting Lily question him. "I was hoping I could get the specs for the ritual you used to bring me here. I had asked Prof—Remus—this morning but I don't know if he had spoken with you yet."

Given the shrewd look on her face, Harry guesses that yes, Remus _had_ talked with Lily, and Lily was equally unimpressed as Remus had been with Harry's curiosity. "I'm sure Remus told you, but the ritual was one way. I… never really considered that the person we brought through wouldn't want to stay."

Harry raises an eyebrow, moving around so he is sitting on the bed he was designated. Though he wants it to rise, his anger at this situation has already—mostly—blown out, and he can't really feel angry at the people here for summoning.

Isn't that exactly what Harry had been doing, when he was summoned? Hadn't him and Hermione been conducting a desperate gambit, hadn't they been at their last hope?

How can be (too) mad at the people who _did the exact same thing he did?_ Granted, he had Hermione's permission to send her back in time, and she knew just what she was getting herself into. Harry was dropped blind into a brand new world, with no knowledge of just _what_ was different, and just what he was expected to do.

Despite how similar many of these people were to their counterparts in his world, he can't just blindly trust them. So he lets his eyebrow rise higher, and he adopts a slightly scornful look. "Are you really so arrogant? To think that whoever you summoned would be _happy_ to fight your war for you?"

Looking conflicted, Lily also has a determined light in her eyes. "You would have died," she points out. "If we hadn't gotten your magic stabilized, you would have died."

"What makes you think it wasn't your own ritual that almost killed me?" Harry challenges, more to argue than because he believes it and nonchalant about his own demise.

"You mean besides the fact that you never questioned why you were in a magical coma? I made that ritual. It would have never taken the energy from the one it was summoning—the energy modifiers clearly pulled magic from the five apexes, not from anywhere else," she defends, crossing her arms over her chest.

Harry stares at her, his mouth open just a little, a deadpan look on his face. "I can't even begin to understand where your logic is coming from. You built a ritual from the ground up—there is no way you can know everything about it. And don't even get me started on energy modifiers," he warns, but she looks interested that he knows what she's talking about.

When she tries to defend herself, Harry shakes his head and holds up his hand. "I'm really not in the mood for equivocating. Can I get a copy or not?"

"I'll see what I can do," is all she says, though Harry can tell that she is only barely holding her tongue.

In that moment, Harry can see with clarity just what is about to happen. The notes will get "lost," he'll "forget" when he starts working for the Order, and he won't get to see the ritual until after Voldemort is gone—and even then, there's no guarantees.

Because of his attitude, Lily will block him at every turn—she is just a stubborn as he is, he thinks with gritted teeth. Slowly, but then with more conviction, he shakes his head. "No. I won't get the run around about this." He frowns, but says, "I think you need to give me the specs for the ritual, as soon as possible."

Lily raises an eyebrow, and with a hollow ache, Harry can see the similarities between the two of them. "What makes you think you are in a position to demand them?" she asks, a little snide.

Harry isn't sure whether or not to be honestly offended. "What makes you think I'm in a position where I _can't?_ " he asks instead. "I said I'd help, and I will. I'm not saying I'll abandon this dimension. But I never said how hard I was willing to work. If I have nothing to work towards, if I don't have this end goal to work towards, I won't be working very hard. It's as simple as that."

"So you're threatening us? Blackmailing us to get your way?" she asks suspiciously.

Harry laughs, high and brittle, and there is nothing remotely amused about the sound. "Said the kidnapper to the victim," he says with a grin showing far too many teeth. "What I'm saying is that I will work much, much harder knowing I'll be able to return to my _home_ , to my _family,_ than if there is no chance."

Now Lily is looking at him in pity and it makes his insides crawl. "I can understand that. But the ritual is really, only one way."

"I think you may have mentioned that," he says a little snidely. "And so be it, if it is. If I have a greater understanding of what brought me here, it will be easier to create something to send me back."

The pitying look is still on her face, like she doesn’t believe that he could possibly be able to do such a thing. "I can understand wanting to _know,_ but what good will it do to get your hopes up for nothing?"

 _She doesn't know what I know_ , he calms himself, trying not to snap at her. _She doesn't know what I was doing when I was summoned._

"It's not nothing," he assures, but he can't tell if it's for her sake or for his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter to be released on or before midnight of 4/26/2015.
> 
> Note: I'd like to thank everyone for the kudos, comments and bookmarks. You are all fabulous.


	6. C-Major 6

Madam Pomfrey can't look him in the eyes as she casts a diagnostic charm that evening. He had spent the remainder of the afternoon resting, though he didn't get much resting done, given that someone would enter the ward every half hour it seemed, to "check on things."

Which translated into, "We really want to know everything about you, so we are going to ask 'innocent' and 'curious' questions to determine the differences between our worlds. And, oh yes, we don't trust you at all, so we are going to be fingering our wands the entire time and stare at you distrustfully."

And, hey, Harry can understand some of that. He gets that this place is at war, so everyone is a little paranoid and on edge about new and unknown people—and that's a pretty logical way to act to keep themselves safe.

(Which should, itself, be a huge sign to Harry, had he been thinking clearly at this point. Wizards on a whole, in his experience, are barely on speaking terms with logic, let alone walking hand in hand like they are in this universe. It'll be days before he makes the connection, and by then it'll be too late.)

It's just when the sixth person interrupts him as he's just about to fall asleep, to ask what _house_ he was sorted into, like that even matters at this point, or who his favorite professor was during his tenure at Hogwarts, he's a little cranky.

(Just like Hogwarts is a _little_ castle, or Voldemort is just a _little_ batshit crazy; Harry's always been a bit casual with his understatements.)

So it's completely justifiable when the seventh person to "check on him" twitches the curtain back finds Harry _glowering_ at them. Normally, Harry would start hexing on principle, but these people have hair triggers (see: Madam Pomfrey) and Harry is not so far gone into his annoyance to make himself an enemy, no matter how good it will feel in the interim.

Plus, he promised Madam Pomfrey that he would stay away from casting anything until his magic has had a little more time to recover and she gives him a clean bill of health. Even though his magic feels much better than when he woke this morning, he knows he's not quite at one hundred percent.

So he doesn’t hex the person on the other side of the curtain, even though he is _sorely_ tempted. He doesn't even grab his wand, which was an exercise in control all by itself.

When he sees who's interrupting his "rest" (for the seventh time), he's glad he restrained the urge because it isn't an Order member who's visiting him, this time. It's a young girl, not a day older than ten, or Harry will eat his hat.

(Now, that is an interesting thought, he muses, since he can't even remember the last time he _wore_ that ridiculous thing. Must have been fifth year, _maybe?_ )

There is none of that fear, or suspicion on her young face that he has become accustomed to in the past three hours. There is curiosity, for sure, and perhaps a little apprehension, but there was nothing reserved about the way this young girl stares at him before smiling shyly. She shakes her head, her short reddish-brown hair barely reaching her shoulders, a stylish fringe hiding hazel eyes.

Almost against his wishes, he feels a lopsided grin tug at his lips, and he is helpless to stop it. He opens his mouth to introduce himself (or to demand what the heck she's doing at his bedside), but he shuts it quickly when she shushes him and crawls up into the chair by his bedside, sitting cross-legged in the uncomfortable chair as she arranges her robes around her.

She appears to listen intently, her head turned to the side so she can hear behind herself better, before she grins, pumping her fist and muttering, "Success!"

Bemused, Harry raises an eyebrow. "You know, I've heard people sneaking _off_ the ward, not _onto_ it, before."

"That's what makes it so brilliant—no one's gonna expect it," she says, her own brow raised challengingly.

Harry concedes the logic of that statement with a slight incline of his head, the beginnings of a grin on his face. "I can see that," he finally says. "I'm H—Evan."

Mentally, Harry rolls his eyes. He'd better start remembering his new name if this charade was going to last longer than a day, he promises to himself.

"Rosie," she puts forth cheerfully, thrusting her hand in his face. He leans back with a small smile on his face, and takes the offered hand.

"Can I ask why you needed to sneak into the Hospital Wing?" Harry asks, having a sinking feeling that the young girl was sneaking into the ward because of _him._ The students had all gone home for the year (if the lack of children entering during the day wasn't enough of a tell, he had asked Madam Pomfrey to confirm), so she must belong to someone who lived in the castle.

He didn't recognize her, but then, he probably wouldn't because he rarely spent time with younger years. There is something familiar about her, the shape of her face, maybe, so he recognizes that he probably knows one of her parents, or both, in the Order, the only people he's seen in the castle thus far.

A mischievous look crosses her face, and despite the shy act she performed earlier, Harry is suddenly, vividly, reminded of the Weasley twins. "Actually, I—"

The curtain blocking his bed from the rest of the ward is ripped back, and the young girl cuts off to whip around. Tonks is standing there, her hair a fire engine red, and a thunderous expression on her face.

Despite her initial surprise, Rose quickly assumes an innocent expression, and looks up at the woman in astonishment. "Auntie Nym," the young girl starts, but stops when she gets a good look at just how pale Tonks is."What—?"

"Out," is all the woman can say, pointing a shaking hand out the ward.

Recognizing that arguing will get her nowhere, the young girl shrugs her thin shoulders, and throws a smile at Harry before jumping from her seat. "Bye, Evan!" she calls, skipping from the ward.

Tonks directs her ire towards Harry, who shrugs his shoulders and raises his hands in the universal sign of surrender. "What did she say to you?" Tonks demands, utterly serious.

"Nothing," Harry says truthfully. "She sat down and introduced herself. Then you were there."

Tonks gives him the hairy eyeball for another moment or two, before she sags, deflating as the steam from her anger peters out. Giving Harry one last look, she doesn't even keep up the pretense of asking him inane questions (she had been by twice before, after she had been called to help "search" for Harry earlier), leaving without another word.

"What in Merlin's name just happened?" Harry asks himself, his brow furrowed as he shakes his head slowly back and forth. He puts it out of his memory (with difficulty), and settles down in his bed, believing that he might actually get a full half hour before the next well meaning Order member stops by.

Yet, not three minutes later, someone is pulling back that curtain and Harry is surprised he doesn't completely snap and attack first. He didn't realize he had enough restraint left at this point, and he thinks Hermione would be proud of him for that (and the thought only aches a _little_ ).

It's Madam Pomfrey this time, and she raises an eyebrow at his admittedly heated glare before dropping her gaze. When the mediwitch (with her averted eyes and embarrassment oozing from her pores) casts her diagnostic charm on Harry, she finally loses her demure posture and frowns at the reading.

She casts the charm again, then one more time before the lines in her forehead smooth out and her face slackens. She finally meets his eyes, and there is something awed in her gaze. "I—I wouldn't believe it if I didn’t see it. You are almost fully recovered. I thought it would take days, if not weeks, for your magic to replenish itself! How is that possible?" she asks, mostly to herself.

Harry doesn't respond more than shrugging his shoulders a clueless look on his face. Inwardly, however, he isn't surprised. As bad as he felt this morning, he's gradually felt better all day long, and though there is an ache in his magic, he can feel that he will be fine to use magic in the morning. Despite his annoyance with people interrupting his sleep all day long, Harry didn't use any magic to set back his healing, so he's feeling a lot better.

"Well, in any case," she says, shaking her head. "You should be fine by morning, and I can release you. But I'm going to suggest not using magic for a few days, just in case, or coming to me should you start feeling faint. We'll see how things go."

Harry nods, agreeing with the mediwitch. Evening is encroaching, and Madam Pomfrey calls for an elf to bring Harry supper. As the mediwitch leaves, Harry gets started on eating, finishing the large platter of food in less than a quarter of an hour, feeling the food give him a boost of energy, to both his mental facilities and his magic.

He'll be glad when he's back to form, he thinks with a sigh, fingering his wand above the blankets. He's learned from experience to not try using his magic before it's fully healed, and he knows how painful that can be. So he's glad, in a way, to have access to a safe place to rest as his magic regenerates. When he was on the run with Hermione, he never had that luxury, so he usually ended up damaging his magic worse and feeling worse for longer than he would if he had just given his magic time to heal on its own.

Not that he has ever been as magically exhausted as he was after that ritual, though it's been close. Harry yawns, settling back into the bed after he called for Mipsy to take the food tray away. Even though he spent most of the day in bed, he's still tired as his body works to regenerate the missing magic.

He's not so far gone into his tiredness that he doesn't notice when, once again, the curtain around his bed is pulled back. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he can recognize the magic pouring off the man who sits wearily back into the chair he occupied the night before.

"Mr. Grim," the old man begins gravely, the tone prompting Harry to open his eyes.

Harry looks around, and is surprised to see they are alone. He had thought his senses were merely being dwarfed by the immense source of magic the old man carries within him, and that the others were being quiet. But no one else is even in the ward, and Harry looks at the old man, a question in his features.

Dumbledore sits back and studies the young man, his gaze lingering on Harry's hair, eyes, and forehead. Harry has a brief moment of panic as he thinks that, perhaps, the old man recognizes him, or perhaps his scar, but there is nothing more than a passing curiosity in the old man's shrewd gaze. There is no "Boy-Who-Lived," here, no Harry Potter with a lightning bolt scar, for Dumbledore to recognize in him. To Dumbledore, it probably just looks like a curious design, nothing earth shattering about the shape in this work, as opposed to his world where it was his most identifying feature.

A weight lifts from Harry's shoulders, yet the feeling doesn't last with the old man speaking again.

"My dear boy, I think it's time the two of us have a little conversation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter to be posted on or before midnight of 5/10/2015.
> 
> Note: Thanks everyone for the kudos, comments, subscriptions and bookmarks!


	7. C-Major 7

_"My dear boy, I think it's time the two of us have a little conversation."_

A distinctly unimpressed look flashes over Harry's face over the _severe_ understatement, but his flat stare at the wizened wizard doesn’t faze the older man. Instead, Professor Dumbledore calmly meets Harry's gaze and waits for Harry to respond.

Harry isn't feeling very generous to the old man, so he meets Dumbledore's eyes and waits. He's somewhat surprised when he doesn't feel a feather-light touch on his mind through his Occlumency barriers.

Granted, he's never been particularly _good_ at Occlumency, but after Voldemort and Snape, he _is_ sensitive to a mental intrusion. So while he probably wouldn't be able to keep out the man, if the Headmaster was determined, Harry would, at the very least, be able to feel it.

Yet, despite maintaining his gaze with the old man, he feels not even a tickle against his shields. Some of his surprise must show on his face, because Professor Dumbledore chuckles, his eyes twinkling.

"It seems that you really know my incarnation in your own world, if you were expecting a mental intrusion," he notes mildly, though there is something deeper to his tone.

"Erm," Harry says, already off balance. Hesitantly, he offers, "Sorry if that offends you?"

"No, no, my dear boy, I think that's a fine stance to take. I imagine this all must be very confusing for you and the differences between our worlds must be great," the older man says, waving away Harry's apology with a negligent wave of his hand.

"You can say that again," Harry mutters under his breath while thinking, _not as much as you'd think._ He finally breaks off eye contact, allowing his gaze to settle onto his lap, not in an act of modesty but rather to hide what he's truly thinking.

It _is_ jarring to see all these people, and at times it feels like he's dreaming, but because of his research with Hermione, he isn't in as much disbelief as he could be. If they hadn't been planning on sending someone back in time for the past year, then he'd probably be in denial over the sheer impossibility of being here, assuming it is some sort of hallucination or illusion.

Harry doesn't really understand all the mechanics of it, of course, but he has heard Hermione talk through her thoughts enough that he has a good basis of the facts.

In their research, they learned that summoning humans is, theoretically, impossible. The inherent magic in a witch or wizard negates any summoning magic, which is why it doesn't work if you try and summon a dueling opponent with a well placed _accio._ Hermione had ultimately discarded the research, but it was basic enough that even with his limited understanding of spell crafting and runes he could understand the gist of a summoning ritual.

Of course, the only summoning rituals that actually "worked" dealt with demons or other beings of otherworldly origins. And those usually just killed everyone involved, rather than fizzling out like most rituals did regarding humans.

But since he read that, and understood the basic mechanics of the ritual, he didn't have such a hard time accepting the reality around him. When he was spirited from his own world, he was completely empty of magic—he had felt the magic of the summoning tugging on him, but when he still had magic and was powering Hermione's ritual, it was easy enough to ignore. But the moment he was drained, he couldn't fight as the magic snatched him from his universe and deposited him into this one.

So, while he is amazed that he is now sitting in a whole and healthy Hogwarts, he isn't exactly _surprised._ He does have the most absurd luck, after all, so _of course_ he would be the one, of the incalculable number of Chosen One's and Harry Potter's in the multiverse to be chosen by the summoning ritual.

"I admit, you gave me quite a bit to think about, last night," the wizard is saying, and Harry hurriedly checks back into the conversation, packaging up those deep thoughts for a later date. And, _Merlin,_ was it really only last night that he woke in this alternate reality? "And while I believe that our worlds differ vastly, I think your perspective will be greatly appreciated. Would it be too difficult for you if I were to observe that you have been involved in active combat?"

Harry snorts, though there is no humor in the sound. "I think that's pretty much a given, considering I already mentioned that I lost my war," he says, voice thick with bitterness.

"Yes, well," the man parries, nominally flustered by Harry's response. "There is much less active combat in our world. Voldemort's forces are trained for quick and maximum destruction, leaving within moments of arriving. I don't know if you studied Muggle history at all, but we're involved in what could be considered a "Cold War," or a war mostly dealing with intelligence, and the threat of attacks on both sides."

Harry hadn't studied non-magical history since before Hogwarts, but the term tickles a memory that leaves him with the vague impression that Hermione had said something along those lines about _something._ He honestly doesn't remember, but he _thinks_ it might have to do with their plan to travel to the past. Instead of saying any of this, he shrugs one shoulder while shaking his head, a corner of his mouth turned down.

The Headmaster looks put out for only a moment before he rallies, "It's no matter; it was an old man's curiosity. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to expound upon what you hinted at last night."

In between trying to get sleep and trying not to curse the people checking in on him, Harry _had_ thought about what to tell this world about his own world. Certain things, like his true identity, were going to be kept very closely guarded, but other things, like the particulars about the horcruxes, he didn't have any problems talking about.

Except, of course, the one in his head. Can’t forget about that one. And there is zero chance that he’s _going_ to tell anyone about that any time soon, lest some patriot here decides that killing him will better their chances against _their_ Voldemort.

So Harry tells the Headmaster pieces and parts of his own story, weaving it to sound like it’s a continuous narrative, yet missing key elements that could harm him here. At the end of his tale, where he and his partner (he doesn’t mention her name, though he wonders if this world is similar enough that the elderly Headmaster could recognize Hermione in his description) are travelling around the forests of England, no plan or end in sight, the Headmaster gives him a searching look. As if to determine the validity of his story, the old man’s gaze pierces through him.

He meets the gaze head on, once more, and this time he feels the feather light touch against his mind. Harry pushes certain memories he spoke of over the barrier in his mind, and the Headmaster sits back as he sorts through those memories and images. Voldemort growing out from the back of Quirrell’s head, the message of blood written on the wall. The sink in the girls bathroom moving to reveal the long, dark tunnel.

The Goblet of Fire, glowing red. After that, Harry had to be careful of just what he showed—he didn’t want to imply that he was at the epicenter, after all. So he showed the Headmaster as he walked through Grimmauld place, the door to the kitchen meeting room slamming shut. The party at the end of the summer, many Order members milling about. Umbrage at the Head Table. _I must not tell lies,_ etching into the back of his hand.

The images pass faster and faster. The attack on Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, the Weasley twins leaving Hogwarts. Umbrage’s tyranny over the school, the mass detentions with blood quills.

Newspaper articles, showing pictures of Voldemort dueling with Dumbledore in the atrium of the Ministry. Dumbledore laying unmoving, face up in the courtyard, students crying. The Battle of Hogwarts, and the death and destruction that followed.

The last image he shows the stunned professor is the last look Harry took of Hogwarts, barely more than a smoldering ruin—the green houses billowing black smoke, most of the towers little more than molten sludge, knocked to the ground.

As Harry waits for the Headmaster to process these images, he settles back into bed. There was a time when he would have been outraged at the invasion of privacy the old man displayed by trying to gain access to him mind. He's lived through some horrible things because of mistrust and confusion, so if he can gain the Headmaster's trust and maybe save a life or two in the process, then it will be worth it. Professor Dumbledore didn't demand access to his mind, he asked, which makes all the difference in the world.

After another minute or two, the elder sighs, uncharacteristically slumping in his chair. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts before smiling behind his busy silver beard. It isn't a happy smile, instead there is a great deal of sorrow in that expression. "I must admit, even after what you've told me, I had hoped that… Well, it's no matter." He looks at Harry with something akin to sympathy, no doubt knowing that Harry would neither care for, nor accept, his pity.

Harry shrugs indifferently. A lot of bad things may have happened, but it was still _his_ world. Everything that's happened has shaped him, and the relationships he has with others. The closeness he shares with Hermione, for instance, never would have been so deep and understanding as it is, had they not survived through so much together. They've grown from the things they've done and witnessed—Harry imagines that a great deal of who _he_ knows as Hermione is because she has been through so much with him.

When they first met, Hermione was a stickler for rules and authority, blindly trusting their professors to have their best interests at heart. Then first year happened, with Quirrell trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone and Professor McGonagall not believing in them when they told her the stone was in danger.

That was the first time Hermione chose him, chose to believe in _him_ over their professors, and it was a major turning point for the young witch. He can only imagine how _this_ world's Hermione has turned out, without him to guide her into anarchy.

"Don't feel too bad for me," Harry says instead. "My world may be a harder and crueler place than here, but its home, and I'll fight for it and everyone in it for as long as I breathe. Can you understand why it's so important for me to return—to at the very least have the possibility to return?"

The Headmaster considers that, before slowly nodding. "I can understand that it is important for you. But," he says, his tone turning hesitant. "It might very well be impossible. It does not do to dwell on dreams, after all."

Harry's eyes shoot open and he jerks forward before he can temper his reaction. An incredulous sort of laugh bubbles up from his stomach and he lets it out, shaking his head. "You," he says, pausing to regain his breath. "You said that to me my first year as a student."

Professor Dumbledore leans forward slightly in his interest. "Did I now? What an odd thing to say to a first year. How very curious," he says, his eyes twinkling delightedly at the change from the somber pace.

"Yeah," Harry says, regaining his equilibrium. "You said that to me after you caught me sneaking out to visit the Mirror of Erised, for the third night in a row."

The sparkle dims in the old man's eyes as he too remembers the uncanny ability that mirror has to enthrall. "Ah, well, at least the adage holds true, I suppose."

Harry cracks a smile at that, a faded, distant smile. "It held true in that scenario—what I saw _was_ impossible. This," he says, spreading his arms and gesturing around him, "This is merely highly improbable. I'm a little surprised that you, of all people, would try and tell me not to get my hopes up about this—you, who are notoriously hopeful about our chances against You-Know-Who, even when everything looks bleak. How can my hope to return home be any different?"

Dumbledore has the decency to look abashed by the dressing down and looks at his lap.

Despite Harry's words, however, he realizes that his reflection in the mirror is not quite so impossible, considering he is in a world where both his parents are alive.

"You're right," Dumbledore finally says, and for the first time, Harry can detect a flicker of respect—as an equal—in the old man's gaze. "I will offer all the resources I have available to aid in your quest to return home. On the condition that you will aid us in our battle here, of course."

Harry gauges the sincerity of the wizard beside him before he nods slowly. "That man, in any universe, deserves to pay for his crimes, against the wizarding world and humanity itself."

Satisfaction teases the corners of Dumbledore's eyes, as he leans back with a smile. "Then I believe that we have an accord?" he clarifies, steepling his fingers across his chest, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair.

Harry measures the man with his gaze. "Yes. Assistance for assistance."

_For now,_ Harry thinks, a sudden feeling of foreboding, churning in his gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter to be updated on or before midnight of 5/24/2015.
> 
> Note: Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and families out there! This chapter is dedicated to my own mother, who introduced me to the Harry Potter series when I was a young girl. 
> 
> Thanks everyone who commented, subscribed, read, bookmarked and left kudos!


	8. C-Major 8

Harry's given a clean bill of health in the morning from a grudging Madam Pomfrey. The matron seems unable to decide if she's astounded by his expedient recovery or taking it as a personal affront that he's recovered almost entirely without her help.

As it is, she glares at him suspiciously as she says, "You are free to go. I'm still going to recommend that you take it easy on any higher level magic for at least a few more days, until you are feeling better."

Harry doesn’t tell her that he is feeling fine already, doesn’t tell her that, if pushed, he has no compunctions about using any magic at this stage.

He's been through this song and dance too many times to _not_ know his magic as well as he does. He knows when he can strain it, and he knows the threshold point where he can't cross without losing his magic completely (or killing himself, because at that point it's a tossup over what'll happen to him if he pushes it that far).

So he pretends to agree, and by the squinty look she settles on him, he can tell she doesn't believe him when he says that, scouts honor, he won't use magic for a few days. He's been on the receiving end of that look enough times that he knows it is her default look for anyone she discharges.

Mostly, its students, so her lack of faith in her patients ability to _not_ get in trouble after their stay with her is understandable, even if it chafes at him. He's generally irresponsible and irreverent when it comes to his health, but he isn't a child, and when push comes to shove, he _can_ take care of himself.

Yet, he isn't released into freedom, even if he was hoping for it. Nymphadora Tonks is waiting for him outside the wing, leaning casually against the stone wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She pushes herself off the wall when she sees him, matching his stride when he doesn't wait for her to catch up.

He isn’t surprised that they wouldn't just let him wander the castle by himself, though he is disappointed. He side-glances at Tonks, her hair today a striking cobalt, and he can see her checking him out just as thoroughly, though with less curiosity and more hostility.

He hasn't a clue what he's done to make her pissed at him, given that he's barely said two words to this version of the woman he knew like a sister in his world. Or, perhaps a young aunt—nothing like his _actual_ aunt, however, since Tonks actually liked him.

Brow crinkling, Harry frowns as he steers them towards the Great Hall for a late breakfast. Hogwarts has always, _always,_ been his home, since he was an eleven year old, scrawny kid, terrified of being sent home for not belonging. There was something about the magic in the air, about the way it feels like every time he returns to the castle, he's being welcomed by an old friend. The comforting waft of magic never failed to make him feel loved, like he's a dear friend that's been missed.

There is something different about this Hogwarts, however, and that makes him miss _his_ Hogwarts. The magic is just as warm, just as welcoming. But it's new, like a greeting, a cautious probing of his magic as it warily tests his intentions. It makes him sad, that this world has become a place where even Hogwarts herself is distrustful of newcomers.

This Hogwarts doesn't remember him. And he doesn’t remember this Hogwarts. Walking through the halls, he's astounded by the subtle changes. This suit of armor along the opposite wall, this painting in a different frame.

Small things, that add up to a surreal feeling of _this does not belong._ He isn't quite sure if the feeling stems from the fact that he _knows_ he saw the destruction of Hogwarts, or because he _knows_ that things here are fundamentally wrong. By the time they reach the Entrance Hall, Harry is sure his disquiet is written all over his face because he can't contain the feeling that something here is wrong.

Tonks hostility at this point has faded and though she is still watching him critically, there is something akin to concern in her gaze now. "What's wrong?" she asks, stopping beside him halfway to the Great Hall.

He runs his hand through his hair to buy time, only belatedly realizing that the action was inherited from his father, who is _alive_ in this world. A wry grin worms its way onto his face. "No matter how similar this world appears, it is so frustratingly _wrong_ in a way that I can barely comprehend."

Tonks doesn't say anything right away, silently watching the conflict playing over Harry's countenance.

It hadn't sunk in, while he was in the Hospital wing—not really anyway. He was confined to a small area that he had spent a lot of time in, but it was _exactly the same_ as his world, so he was lulled into a false sense of security. He had known, intellectually, that he was in a different world—which was reinforced every time he met someone native to this world.

But emotionally, he was cocooned in the protective enchantments of the ward, layers of monitoring and safety spells he was so intimately familiar with.

He chokes down some indefinable emotion that clouds his features as he closes his eyes in an attempt to drown out the magic around him. Out here, in the castle itself, it becomes more and more obvious that this is not his home world and he is holding onto his composure by the very skin of his teeth.

Tonks finally shrugs beside him, not uncaring, but unable to offer any real support. He feels the motion more than he can see it, as his eyes are still closed, yet the uncoordination inherent in the motion offers him at least a little bit of comfort.

It's normal enough so he can tuck away his urging panic that has him in a stranglehold in a tight ball and throw it deep into his mind. His heart is still beating wildly in his neck and he's almost positive that Tonks can hear it, but it doesn't matter because he can finally _breathe._

He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, shakily. He finally opens his eyes and offers Tonks a tumultuous smile. She's looking at him with a healthy hint of curiosity and maybe a tad bit of pity, but there is no recognition, no connection between them—and that's enough to make his temples break out in a sweat as he tries to waive off another wave of panic.

_He's never missed Hermione more than he misses her right now._ In the dark hours before dawn, she was the one who held him, nightmare after nightmare. She calmed his racing heart, she held his head as he tried to cry.

She kept him sane, after long days without sleep, ages of being on the run. She healed his broken and gaping heart and gave him comfort whenever he needed it. She has always, _always,_ been there for him, and he has to only take strength from her image.

He can't see himself, but a fire lights in his eyes as grave determination flows through him. Hermione is all alone in the past, changing the future as they knew it, and the entire weight of the future rested on her thin shoulders.

It's a weight that would bow even him, but he knows that like Atlas, she is more than capable of hefting the weight, ready to meet whatever she might face head on.

Abstractly, since learning he was dumped in the past in an alternate dimension, he knew he was going to find a way to get to her. But now… he knows he can't stay in this dimension. He doesn't belong here—he belongs with _his_ Hermione, in _his_ world, even though it would mean fighting Voldemort one more time.

But he'd fight Voldemort a thousand times, if it meant he could stay with Hermione forever. Sure, he could learn to find comfort in this world, could learn to consider this Hogwarts home.

Without Hermione, however, he didn't want to. The mere hope of the _possibility_ of reuniting with her ignites a vicious determination within him as he decides he _will_ reach his Hermione again.

Or die trying.

* * *

Tonks is giving him an odd look as they walk through the doors of the Great Hall a few minutes later. He can sheepishly admit within his own mind that the emotional one eighty probably _was_ suspicious, but it couldn't be helped.

_I will see Hermione again,_ he thinks to himself, and can't stop the giddy smile from flashing across his face. His eyes dash around the cavernous hall, skimming over the people eating breakfast, all of whom looked up at him as he entered, and settling a second longer on the two doors at the end of the Hall before it shoots up at the sky.

The sense of wrongness scratches at the corners of his mind, but he reiterates that thought once more in his mind and he is able to ignore it with ease. As he finishes subconsciously assessing the room, he allows his sight to wander to the pockets of people sitting at the long tables. Lily looks up and gives him a half smile, while her husband tiredly doesn’t even look up from his plate.

Two seats down, Remus is reading from a book and the Sirius beside him tries to engage him in an apparently entertaining story, given the exuberant man's increasingly frenetic gesticulations.

The teachers who are also part of the Order are sitting up at the Head Table, though Harry notices that Snape is conspicuously absent.

He doesn't see the young girl he met the day before, and he's almost half convinced he had hallucinated the whole thing until she comes skipping through the open doors and sits down next to Remus—who finally looks up from his book to greet the beaming girl with a patient smile.

Tonks leads him away from them, to sit at the unoccupied Hufflepuff table which quickly sets itself and steaming food appears on the serving dishes. After scanning the room one last time, Harry sits down, and stacks his plate with as much food as can fit.

He methodically makes his way through the food, and when his plate is empty, he fills it up again. Harry looks up at the odd noise Tonks makes from across the table, and he raises an eyebrow at the fascinated look on her face. "Can I help you?" he asks, swallowing the food in his mouth and dabbing his lips with his napkin.

"N—Nothing. I don't think I've ever seen someone eat quite so much in one sitting, that's all. It's... impressive?" she questions, as if she isn't sure if that's really the word she wants to use.

Harry shrugs inelegantly as he takes another large bite, chewing thoughtfully. "How much do you know about magical exhaustion?" he asks as a seeming non sequitur.

Tonks clearly thought so, as she pulled her head back and frowned, her brow arching.

_Some things,_ Harry thinks, _don't change._ It's curious that, despite everything, Tonks' "base face" is the same in both worlds, even when Harry knows that it isn't _really_ what she looks like. He's seen her once, without her metamorphmagi abilities enhancing her features, and knows that she looks stunningly like her aunt, Bellatrix, except younger and with softer features.

"Not much," she admits, the skepticism falling from her face, only to be replaced with curiosity.

"Well, it's not fun, for one. The way it was described to me is that your magic is like a balloon," he starts, and pulls out his wand to demonstrate, conjuring a balloon filled with helium. He tries not to notice the way Tonks' hand flies to her own wand, though his eyes tighten at the reminder that he isn't really welcome here.

"Normally, people use a moderate amount of magic every day." He pokes his wand at the balloon, and a tiny hole appears in the side, shrieking as air escapes the hole. "But since they aren't constantly using magic, just resting and eating regular meals replenishes the little amount that was lost. Even using a lot of magic doesn't really matter; you might feel hungrier than normal, or you might go to bed earlier to replenish that."

He indicates with his wand the bottom of the balloon, where air rushes in at steady intervals, maintaining equilibrium of the balloon.

"I don't really want to get in to what I was doing in the previous few months, but suffice it to say, resting and food were in short supply while I was almost constantly using magic." He widens the hole, and his balloon deflates slowly until it lands on the toast, the air from the bottom of the balloon unable to maintain its shape until it was about the size of his fist.

"But, add a greater amount of sleep, a medically induced coma, and eating a _lot_ more," he waves his wand again, and the air flow entering the balloon triples as it slowly refills, though not quite to the size it was before. "And it finally replenishes itself. But note how the rate of air I'm pumping into the bottom is still quite a bit more than before?"

He waits for Tonks' nod, and he's happy to note that she seems to be following him, and is interested in his explanation. "Well, even though I'm not using much magic, the damage is still there, and that takes longer to heal. So for the next few days, I'll still be sleeping and eating a lot, while using as little magic as I can to help it heal faster."

Tonks nods again in understanding, and Harry doesn't even feel bad for misleading her as he pockets his wand after dismissing the balloon conjuration and makes his way through his third plate. What he did wasn't so much as widening that hole, but instead popping the balloon, more or less. He purposefully siphoned almost all of his magic away and into that ritual, not that he's about to let anyone here know that.

He did a lot of damage to his magical core, but he knew he would and he was quite alright with Madam Pomfrey thinking it was their ritual that almost killed him. It will help him get information about the ritual they used, if they are feeling guilty about it. It's worth a try, anyways.

His gaze absently travels to the enchanted ceiling, and he notices the darkening cloudy skies above them.

_It's a good day to do research,_ he thinks in a voice that belongs to Hermione, a wry smile sticking on his face as he chews the last of his bacon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: new chapter to be posted on or before midnight of 6/7/2015.
> 
> Thanks everyone for the support. I apologize if the ending seems rushed, but I had a hard time getting from point A to point B, and that metaphor kind of got away from me. I hope it makes sense?


	9. C-Major 9

It takes almost all day to convince his "guide" that he would really like to start looking into the ritual that brought him here, _thank you very much._ Though, perhaps, convince isn't the right word to use, considering he more or less walked away from her.

After breakfast, she had taken it upon herself to introduce him to everyone within the castle, even if that meant walking from one end of the castle to the other, multiple times, and in the most circuitous route imaginable. It took him about an hour to realize she is attempting to distract him from doing anything _useful_ —in his defense, his attention was otherwise occupied with trying to reverse engineer the ritual that brought him here.

And, it isn't like he's really meeting anyone _new_ ; he's met many of these Order members and teachers before. And to be honest, he doesn’t really _want_ to get to know them again, because he knows himself far too well.

He knows that meeting these people, connecting with the live counterparts of his dead loved ones, will make it that much harder to leave this world. Because he _will_ leave, return to his world and his Hermione, and it will hurt him to get to know people like his parents, only to leave them.

So he can be forgiven for taking so long to realize what Tonks is up to because his mind really isn't on the world before him. But when he is able to recognize her stalling for what it is, he gives her a dry look that she challengingly returns.

He raises an eyebrow, which she mirrors before leading him to another room, and _another_ person to meet. Wistfully, he considers ditching her (which wouldn't be _that_ hard), but logic rears its head and he lets go of the impulse, knowing it would only get him into trouble.

From then on, however, he interjects with questions about the ritual that brought him here, hoping to annoy Tonks enough that she lets him go research like he wants. "So, who, of the dozen or so people you've just introduced me to were involved in my kidnapping attempt?"

Valiantly, Harry can almost _see_ the control it requires Tonks to keep her eyebrow from twitching. He has been asking some variant of that question every few minutes for the past half hour, and already he can see that it is taking its toll on the older witch.

He restrains the urge to grin, knowing it could only get him into trouble, but it's hard. He wasn't _that_ close to Tonks in his world, but he remembers being teased by her mercilessly, every time they met—though to be fair, she teased everyone like that, not just him. She took far too much pleasure in seeing others blush and sputter that Harry felt this was a fair payback, even if it wasn't _this_ Tonks who teased him, once upon a time.

After three more questions of increasing pointedness regarding his kidnapping, Tonks finally snaps, turning to him with a glare as her hair turns fire engine red. It almost looks on fire under the torchlight in the underground corridor they are walking through. "Would you quit it with that? It wasn't like that and you know it!"

The amusement glimmering in his eyes turns to ice and she takes an involuntary step back. He has gotten better with his temper as he isn't a teenager in the midst of puberty anymore, but he is, admittedly, rather quick to anger when pushed.

And that, what Tonks just said? Was about as big a shove as he's ever felt. "Not like that, you sat?" he says in a deceptively mild tone of voice. "Then enlighten me, wouldn't you? How, _exactly,_ is it like? Because from my view point, it looks like you _gave up._ You decided it was too hard to fight your own battles, and chose the _easy solution_ and summoned some patsy to do your dirty work. You realize that is what it looks like, right? You've essentially decided that I am to become a _murderer."_

Tonks staggers back, as if slapped, and she leans heavily against the corridor wall. "That wasn't—it's not…"

"Can't come up with an accurate deflection? Can't _rationalize_ your actions anymore? By the pallid look on your face, right about now, it looks like you hadn't really thought of me as a person, merely a means to an end, before now. Am I not just as human as you? Am I not entitled to the same rights as you are, just because I'm not from _this_ world, I'm not part of _this_ Order?"

As soon as he started speaking, he became utterly unable to stop the things he's been thinking since he woke up here. And he's not even sure he _wants_ to stop, at this point. Did Tonks, and therefore the rest of the Order, really not think about what they were doing by summoning him here?

Harry can admit that, until now, when he was making those kidnapping jokes, they _were_ jokes, for the most part. He had spoken them part in jest and part in seriousness, because it just seemed to rile up whoever he was speaking to. Nobody took them very seriously either, apparently, because Tonks looks like she is going to be sick.

A part deep in his mind feels a vindictive sort of pleasure for making her look that way, for _finally_ being able to impress the seriousness of the situation on _somebody._ But the greater part of his mind is sad, disappointed, that despite all their supposed research on their summoning ritual, they didn't think about what would happen when he got here.

The anger in him fizzles, and he closes his eyes, trying to stamp out the rest. When he opens them again and meets Tonks' eyes, his gaze is level, yet unimpressed. "You didn't think about what you were doing, when you summoned me here. You were so wrapped up in making sure it worked, that you didn't even think about what would happen when I was actually here. Until now, it was purely hypothetical, what would happen if the ritual really worked. Or maybe you thought I would be _grateful,_ or _happy_ to help rid this world of Voldemort, without really thinking about where I came from, or how I felt about coming here. Were you really so arrogant, so sure of yourselves, that you didn't even think about what would happen when I actually arrived?"

His tone is soft, but like poison it seeps through the open wounds Harry left with his earlier words, causing Tonks to scrunch her eyes closed tight and shake her head, as she refuses to listen to his words.

It's cruel of him, to continue, but he can't stop himself—he hadn't realized he was so angry about being summoned from his home, everything that was familiar, and the woman he holds dear. But the words keep spilling from him and he isn't feeling charitable enough to try and stop them.

"I thought the Order was supposed to be the good guys—they were in my world, at least. They fought and died to protect the children of our world—we would have _never_ considered pulling someone from their world, without researching how to return them. It's the only _humane_ thing to do, after all," he finishes in a light tone, tilting his head and looking like he was pondering what he just said.

"What makes you think you are _above_ things like human decency? What gives _you_ the _right_ to decide the fates of others? What about—"

Harry cuts himself off, noticing movement from the corner of her eye and he backs away. James Potter is standing at the top of the flight of stairs, a hard look on his face but his eyes are wide, unseeing. James shakes his head before glaring at Harry, and the bottom falls out of Harry's stomach. "That's enough. I get that you're angry, but you don't need to take it out on Tonks."

_This is not my father,_ Harry chants weakly in his mind, and in a way, it works. He's never met his father, and this man is much older than any pictures he's seen of James Potter, so it isn't hard to convince himself that the man before him couldn't possibly be James Potter—there's no way _his_ father would be looking at him like this.

But the little boy whose only friends growing up were the spiders he shared his cupboard under the stairs with _aches_ at the look on his father's face. The Harry he is now is long past the need for validation from parents, he's long grown out of the need to be accepted. In a way, he thinks with a rueful smile, it's almost the story of his life—to be confronted with the reality of living parents, only to be on opposite sides of the same argument.

"No? I don't need to _take it out_ on anyone. I need you all to understand that this isn't a game. This is someone's _life_ you're messing with, this is _my_ life! What gives you the right to play God like that? There is a reason rituals like that are forbidden, but you went and did it anyway, with no care for the consequences!"

James' face drops into shadow as he looks down at his hands. Tonks, beside Harry, sprawls bonelessly onto the floor and looks up at the ceiling, a trail of tears running from her eyes and down her neck. "That isn't true," James says quietly, gaining strength as he looks up at Harry with a broken look on his face.

"That isn't true. Many of us considered it, we discusses the pros and cons of such a ritual. But we decided the risks outweighed the rewards, and we _were_ losing our fight! We needed something, someone, to tip the scales in our fight with Voldemort! Don't you get it? We are desperate!"

James pleads at Harry to understand, but of its own accord, Harry's heart hardens. "So desperation excuses your actions? Desperation makes it OK to steal someone from their homes, from their loved ones? What if I hadn't been so understanding of your situation, when I first got here? What if I had decided that I wouldn't help you—that I would turn against you? What would you have done then?"

James' face pales, as if the thought had only now occurred to him. Harry shakes his head at their naivety. "You admit to having considered the pros and cons of summoning a stranger from a different world. You admit that you knew it was risk, that you knew you were effectively kidnapping me from my home. But you never really considered the consequences of that, did you? What if I just didn't care? What then?"

"But you do care, don't you?"

Both Harry and James turn to Tonks, whose tears are drying, and she looks steadier. She meets Harry's gaze, head on, though there is regret written all over her face. "You do care about this world, don't you?" she repeats, something akin to hope washing through her eyes.

It's with a heavy heart that Harry shakes his head, slowly at first but gaining certainty. "No, I don't care about this world. It could burn to nothingness, and I wouldn't bat an eye."

Harry turns away from them, looking down the dark corridor, his spine rigid. This revelation is nothing new, but it leaves a sour feeling in his stomach. He turns his head, and he can see the both of them stare at him from the corner of his eye. "But the people here, are so like my friends and family back home, that I could never face their graves, if I were to return to them without doing my best to help their counterparts. I have enough regrets, I have enough to feel sorry for, that doing so could break me.

"So no, I don't care what happens to this world. Not really. But I'll do whatever it takes to save it, and return home to the ghosts of my world."

Harry turns away from them fully, and walks alone into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: next chapter to be posted on or before midnight of 6/21/2015. 
> 
> Thanks everyone who read, bookmarked, commented, subscribed, and left kudos! I think I had some excess rage while writing, because this was not at all how I planned to write this chapter, when I sat down. It was supposed to be calm, little drama. Lupin planned to make an appearance, but clearly, the characters had other plans!


	10. C-Major 10

Harry is two floors away before he calms enough to stop stalking through the corridors with dark purpose and a scowl on his face.

He stops in the middle of the hallway and takes a deep breath, letting the irritation melt from his features. It's only then that he lets himself think about the horrified looks on James Potter's face, only then that he can see the crestfallen look on Tonks'.

Guilt fetters low in his stomach, and he regrets going off on them like he did.

Not that he regrets _what_ he said, just the way he said it. Their cavalier attitude towards him, towards his feelings on being in this new world, have been grating on him since he arrived.

He needed to make them understand that he was human too, that he was more than just their champion (or whatever they thought of him as).

Though, he thinks with a wry grin, he probably could have picked a better way to properly make his displeasure known. His temper seemed to get the better of him, this time—the first time he's gone off like that in a few years, and it brings him back to fifth year all over again.

He shakes his head while rolling his eyes, and starts walking down the hallway again, this time slower and more thoughtful.

Tonks' hopeful turned hollow stare follows him through the empty corridors.

* * *

If Harry had known he looked just as Hermione did, when she entered the Library upon returning to the past, he would've gotten a kick out of it.

As it is, Harry stops just inside the door to the west entrance and just _breathes._ The more things change, the more things stay the same, he thinks, as the scent of old books and parchment brings back some nostalgic memories of studying within the stacks with Hermione.

But those are the only memories he feels nostalgic about. Harry's never really cared for reading, outside his school work, not like Hermione anyway, so the only joy the library brings is the memories he's shared with Hermione here.

He's quick to shake off the ghosts of memory (he's getting pretty good at that) and delves further into the library, easily bypassing the wards on the restricted section—active, even though school is over for the summer.

If he were a betting man, he'd say that they were active to try and keep him out—though there was also at least one young witch in the castle, as he saw this morning, so perhaps that's just his pride speaking.

He shakes it off again, this time literally shaking his head as he makes his way to the back restricted section, where he knows the books on runes are.

Since he still doesn’t have a copy of the ritual that brought him here, he figures his best bet is to start with seeing if some of the higher level runes books are the same. Though, now that he thinks about it, he should _really_ look to see if even the same runic languages are used in this universe.

That thought causes horror to creep up his spine; what if all his knowledge, all his experience, is rendered moot by one of those quirky differences between worlds? He'd have to relearn an entire language—maybe more, depending on the runic sequences that brought him here—not to mention if the syntax is different…

Maybe he should just pick up a book, rather than allow himself to freak out by something that may not even matter in the long run, he thinks, a little hysterically, to himself.

With his luck, it could go either way, but his heart rate slows to manageable levels when he catches sight of a familiar set of runes on a spine of a book. He picks up a book on advanced runic equations required for warding homes and businesses and breathes out a sigh of relief; he's read this book before, or skimmed it at least, though it looks like a newer edition than the one he had.

He places the book back on the shelf, glancing at the meager three bookcases filled with the Ancient Runes books. He takes a deep breath before nodding, grabbing the first ten books on the shelf and making his way over to a table along the back wall.

He's got work to do.

* * *

Harry quickly realizes that researching Ancient Runes is a whole lot more interesting when he has Hermione to help him work through the equations. Also, it's a bit easier to understand when he has a time limit and literally running for his life.

(He wonders what that says about him, before realizing that he _really_ doesn't want to know.)

Still, he muddles through a few texts, and before he knows it, it's way past lunch and his eyes are itchy. Tiredly, he rubs them as he closes his book, pushing it away from him.

"Interesting read?"

Harry doesn't jerk around at the sound of a voice coming from just outside his vision on the left, but its close. He had set up a proximity ward, which he now realized was chiming lightly in his mind—he breaks the charm with barely a thought as he rolls his eyes at his carelessness. "Ah, Prof—Lupin. Sorry, no, not particularly."

An odd look crosses the wearied man's face, but it's gone before Harry can identify it. "I see," he says, in a way that tells Harry that no, he really doesn't see, but is merely being polite.

Lupin has a book under his arm, and he seems to have come in with it, so Harry assumes he was stumbled upon, rather than actively looked for.

Belatedly, Harry realizes that some of the texts he has been looking for aren't on the shelves—not because they were never written in this universe, like he was afraid, but probably because whoever created the ritual to bring him here took them out and was using them as a reference.

Harry wants to smack himself for not thinking of that in the first place, and the only reason he doesn’t is because Lupin is already giving him a half amused, half wary look. Harry gives the man a shrewd look as his book choices are, in turn, being scrutinized. "So, am I in trouble?" he asks, not particularly worried about the answer.

Lupin raises an eyebrow at the tone, but doesn’t say anything other than, "May I join you?"

Harry shrugs, pushing a few of his books out of the way negligently, and kicking out the chair across from him. Lupin settles himself in the chair, placing his book in front of him, and meeting Harry's gaze calmly.

"To answer your question, yes, you probably should be in trouble. When Tonks and James appeared in the Great Hall for lunch, without you—well, you can say there was a bit of an uproar about that. Similarly, when no one was able to find you after you had stalked off, worried is putting it mildly."

"No one thought to look for you here, though the library was the first place Tonks looked. How did you get past the wards on the door?" Lupin asks, a mildly curious look on his face.

Harry shrugs again. "The wards are no different than the ones in my world, and I was able to sneak past _those_ back in fourth year."

"That explains a lot," the older wizard mumbles under his breath. Louder, he asks, "Do you think you should be in trouble?"

Harry looks back to the book in front of him, and waits to feel the regret. Waits to feel anything more than the guilt that is still chewing at him for _how_ he treated Tonks. Yet, after a long minute, he finds he still doesn’t regret going off on Tonks after her thoughtless comment.

So he meets Remus' eyes without hesitation, and shakes his head. "No, I don't think I should be in trouble. _Maybe_ for walking off without my Auror escort, but not for what I said."

Lupin looks like he wants to comment, but all he says is, "Auror escort?"

Confused, Harry raises his eye brow at Lupin. "Tonks? She's been on me like a burr all day."

"Ah," Lupin says, his face clearing. "This must be another difference between our worlds. She only graduated a few years ago, or so. She was going to join the Auror corps, but she was needed on a special assignment for the Order during her training so she had to drop out. I suppose she would be an Auror soon, if she had continued with her training."

Even more confused that before, Harry rolls his eyes when he remembers the timelines of this world and his world aren't the same. He eyes Remus critically, realizing that the man really does look younger—though Harry had originally chalked that up to being among living Marauders.

He hadn't even realized that the Tonks in this dimension was actually _his_ age, rather than a half a decade older than him. She looked almost exactly as he remembered her, and he wonders why she would— _Oh,_ he thinks to himself, _Lupin must be using the same excuses he did in my world; about how he's too old for her. She must be making herself look older to try and convince him they could be happy._

He doesn't smile, but its close. Again, the thought, _the more things change, the more things stay the same,_ runs through his head. Though the happy feeling quickly drops away when he realizes he shouldn't be making assumptions about _who_ Tonks was trying to seduce. It could be Snape, for all he knew, or someone he doesn't even know here. Or he could be totally off base and basing this all off his knowledge of _his_ world's Tonks.

Lupin is watching him closely, when Harry comes back to himself. Harry shrugs under the inquisitive stare and agrees. "I'm coming to learn that our worlds are quite different, beneath the surface."

"Indeed," Lupin agrees. "But don't you think you were being a little harsh?"

"No," Harry immediately replies. "I don't think there is a nicer way I could have said any of that. Nothing that would have stuck. Since I've arrived here, I've been treated as a side show, or a willing martyr. I'm neither of those things. I'm someone who was unceremoniously ripped from my home, without my consent or my knowledge. I don't want to be your only hope; I _can't_ be. I _can_ help, but only if I'm treated like a person. Not _one_ person has offered me any assistance to find my way home, not one person has offered any condolences for effectively killing everyone who is important to me."

At the look on Lupin's face, Harry hastens to add, "I'm really not trying to make you feel bad, or anything, but none of you really realized just what you did to me, when you plucked me from my world. I'm just not a person in your eyes."

"That's—" Lupin cuts himself off but he's having a hard time meeting Harry's eyes.

"Look, I don't want to get into this again. Let's just agree to disagree, or whatever, but I'm really not in the mood to get angry again," Harry says plaintively.

"I—" Lupin again cuts himself off, looking like he wants to refute Harry's claims, but unable to while looking him in the eye.

Harry rolls his eyes, pulling another book towards him, the familiar words washing over him—this was one he read in his world, one of the few that he really understood.

After a few minutes, Lupin stops trying to say something, opening his book as well—but Harry can tell, the way the hair on the back of his neck stands up, that Lupin is sneaking glances at him.

But Harry soon forgets about that, too, in favor of reading. This book is on the dangers of creating rituals based on runes to strengthen one's body, or mind—not that it has any examples of course, but there are enough anecdotes that Harry can read between the lines.

A single line catches his eye, and his heart rate picks up as he reads through it.

_Statistically speaking, any attempts to use another person within the confines of the ritual, almost always end rather violently. There are exceptions to this rule, but these are few and very far in between._

_There was once a man who claimed, when another person trotted upon his runic array and altering it as he was in the process of charging it, that he slipped sideways through the universe. Of course, the man was clearly dangerous, and there were no records of him past his Hogwarts days. During his trial, he tried to claim that he was bound by a prophecy, but since he was delusional, and the Unspeakables could not verify that such a prophecy existed, he was sentenced to life in the long term ward at St. Mungos._

_In another case…_

Harry rose from the table, slamming the book shut and tucking it under his arm. He didn't even turn around as Lupin called his name as he left the library at a near sprint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: Next chapter to be posted on or before midnight of 7/5/2015.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has read, commented, subscribed, bookmarked, and left kudos!


	11. C-Major 11

Harry doesn't know where he's going; he just knows he needs to _go._

He didn't have a destination in mind when he left the library, just the clawing at his throat was tearing through his chest and the urge to _run run run_ beat in time with his heart, pounding in panic right out from his chest _._

Harry comes back to himself in front of a newly appearing doorway on the seventh floor, across from the tapestry of the Barnabas the Barmy. He doesn’t' remember passing the blank wall three times, but it doesn't change the fact that the ornate doors are looming above him.

He doesn't hesitate to throw himself through the doors, and his breath catches as he recognizes what he must have subconsciously called up.

It's the tent that he, Ron and Hermione lived in as they searched for Voldemort's horcruxes, the tent that he and Hermione later scoured the countryside in as they searched for way to turn back time.

Despite the constant fear of being captured that they were living under, those six months were some of the best he could ever remember. He doesn't even need to look around to _feel_ that though this might have been pulled from his memories—not real, _she's_ not here—its home.

He sits at the table on the raised platform slowly. It smells like herbs—this is where Hermione often cut the ingredients for potions, and vegetables for dinner.

The notches from the knife, scoring the table are the same, precise marks as in his world, so he closes his eyes and wills his heart rate to slow, though the effort is mostly futile.

He survived being summoned—and those that were attempting to summon him survived— because there was a prophecy binding him. If that story is true—and Harry is desperately, _desperately,_ hoping that it is—then the man was bound by a prophecy that doesn't exist in this realm. That was why he was able to cross between worlds, why he _survived_ a trip between worlds.

Something must have happened to the man in _this_ world, which was why there wasn't two of them roaming around, and why this world had no records of the man after his Hogwarts years. Maybe, maybe dimension travel only works when there isn't a double of one's self. He sighs, opening the book and taking a look at the publishing date.

Less than ten years ago. His fingers tap on the table, and Harry's mind goes back to that prophecy, and the fact that he survived the trip. He really _shouldn't_ have survived—there is a certain precedent for people _dying_ in such endeavors. It all comes back to that terrible prophecy.

That's the only reason he can think of, given that all his research yielded results that would indicate such travel impossible. A cold stone drops in his stomach as he hopes, prays, that no one in this world has read this book.

His cover would completely unravel, if that were the case. It was a single paragraph, in a single book, so the knot loosens, but doesn’t dissolve completely.

Yet, it gives him hope. He's still bound by the prophecy in his world, regardless of whether or not one exists here. And maybe, just maybe, that will help him return to his world.

* * *

It's late in the evening when Harry finally emerges from the Room of Requirement, so late that he doesn't come across anyone wandering the halls. He's honestly a little surprised there isn't a search party out for him—again—today, but shrugs it off as fluke or something.

It's well past dinner at this point, so he sneaks in to the kitchens—having missed both lunch and dinner, he's bit famished—and convinces the elves to ply him with more sugary foods.

(The only reason he even came down from the Room of Requirement was because his magic was feeling a little achy and sluggish; even though his body could handle a few skipped meals, his magic could not.)

He knew it was a little too good to be true, having managed to evade anyone on his way down from the seventh floor, as the passageway to the kitchens opened with a faint creek. He holds his breath, hoping it won't be someone he might know. It's been an emotionally jarring day, and he isn't sure if he can take any more ghosts today.

Instead, it's the short red-head he's seen from a distance, and the interrupted conversation they had while he was still in the hospital wing. She looks cautiously around the kitchen, before her expression brightens when she catches sight of him.

She all but skips over to him, snagging some cookies and hot chocolate from a passing elf on her way. "Hi Evan!" she chirps, sliding into the seat across from him.

Harry's brow rises of its own accord and he looks down at his watch. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asks, a little nonplussed by her attitude.

The young girl gives his plate of sweet treats a significant look before countering, "Shouldn't _you_?"

A smile cracks along Harry's face and he concedes defeat by inclining his head. "Point to you, I suppose," he admits, taking another bite of the treacle tart on his plate.

"Yeah!" she enthusiastically agrees, bobbing her head. She quickly turns hesitant, however, and looks up at him from beneath her fringe. "Sorry, about yesterday."

When Harry looks at her, baffled, she explains, "About Auntie Nymmie. She can be a bit overprotective, when she wants to be."

Harry nods, as if agreeing, even though he is terribly confused. He didn't pick up on the connection between this girl and Tonks, but from the way the girl calls Tonks, they are close. Heck, she all but gets away with calling Tonks by her hated name.

He scrutinizes her, trying to see the family connection—maybe Tonks in this world has a sister? His mind kind of skitters around the possibility that maybe _Sirius_ is this girl's father, but he can't see his godfather in the features of Rosie.

He doesn't know if he's thankful about that, or if it just depresses him. In this world, Harry hadn't survived the attack on their home, while his parents did—they would have known that Sirius wasn't the traitor, so he didn't spend time in Azkaban in this world.

Granted, he hasn't interacted with Sirius at all in this universe, but when Harry saw him that first night, there is a lightness to his countenance that didn't exist with Harry's Godfather. His godfather was… more dangerous, in a way, from his time spent with Dementors—a darkness clouded him, even as he tried to move past it.

He shakes his head and focuses on the young witch in front of him. "So what brings you down here this time of night?"

"You mean besides dessert?" she asks with a grin, and Harry gets the feeling they will get along just fine, with the sarcastic lilt to the young girl's voice and the mischievous glint in her eyes. She gets serious and shrugs. "I wasn't ready for bed yet. And then when I saw _you…_ "

She trails off, looking at him imploringly. Harry has _no_ idea what the Order here was telling people about him, _if_ they were telling people about him. He doesn't know the story he's supposed to tell others, and he's fairly certain they didn't tell this little girl that they became kidnappers and summoned him from an alternate universe.

When Harry keeps quiet, the young girl huffs, folding her arms petulantly over her chest and looking away. Amused, Harry smirks at her, and she rolls her eyes in response. "Aw, you're no fun," she pouts. "I wasn't allowed in the Hospital Wing for _ages!_ Nobody was telling me anything, just that someone was there and I wasn't allowed in. Then _everyone_ was in a tizzy when you woke up, so I knew I'd have to see what was going on."

Harry remains smirking, not responding to the clear invitation for him to share more information about himself. He scoops the rest of his tart into his mouth, chewing contemplatively.

Suddenly, a shrewd look crosses over her face and she peers up at him. "Everyone was in a tizzy _today_ when you disappeared not once, but _twice._ They didn't want me to know, obviously, but it isn't like they could _hide_ they were searching the castle for _something._ So where _were_ you?" she asks plaintively.

Harry considers, not finding any real harm in telling her. "Well, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon in the library, after my, ah, tour of the castle was done. Then I decided I would explore the castle a bit more."

Rosie glares up at him, knowing he was being purposefully roundabout. She rolls her eyes again at him, even more exaggerated than before. "You explored the same castle that _everyone_ was looking for you in? And _nobody_ saw you?" The skepticism practically drips from her tone.

Harry gives her a conspiring look before leaning closer over their shared sweets. She eagerly leans closer as well, the petulance dropping from her features.

"I'm really good at sneaking around," he says, as if he's imparting some great secret. Her face drops as she gives him a droll look, clearly unimpressed.

"Obviously," she drawls out, voice dripping with sarcasm. She moves to make another comment before her jaw cracks with the weight of her yawn.

Harry gives her an amused look before stretching out himself. "Perhaps you should get to bed," he says, strangely reluctant to send the girl away.

"Maybe _you_ should," she says under her breath, just to be contrary, Harry's sure. He sighs before standing, motioning her to follow.

"C'mon, I'll walk you to where ever you're staying," he says, feeling slightly responsible and unwilling to let the young girl walk around the castle by herself, especially during these dangerous times.

"Fine," she says, huffing out her own sigh and dropping from the chair.

They walk silently through the corridors, and Harry doesn't miss the impressed and curious looks from the girl at his side as he navigates them through the halls, not meeting any of the patrolling Order members they could hear stalking through the corridors.

Finally, they stop in front of a landscape where a young girl was frolicking, Rosie looking up at him, a confused frown on her face. "What is it?" Harry whispers, feeling exposed standing out in the corridor and longing to take out his cloak.

He resists the urge to peer down both sides of the corridor, but only just barely.

"Nothing," she says, scuffing her foot on the floor while looking reluctant to leave.

Harry sighs, and gives her an indulgent look. "I'll see you tomorrow, Rosie."

The girl perks right up, looking indecisive for only a moment before rushing in and giving him a quick hug and darting to the frame right after.

In shock, all Harry can do is stand there as the portrait closes, Lily Potter's scolding voice demanding, "And just where were you, young lady?"

Rosie. Rosie _Potter._

It's just his luck that the only person who he actually _likes_ in this universe, and who actually likes _him_ is his unknowing sister.

Of _course_ it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: Next chapter to be posted on or before midnight Sunday, 7/19/2015.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, left comments and kudos, subscribed, and bookmarked.
> 
> Sorry it's a little shorter than normal. Seemed like a good place to stop!


	12. C-Major 12

Harry doesn't sleep much that night—not that he normally sleeps much anyway, but that night in particular he is kept awake by thoughts of a _sister._

Also, he wasn't really given a room to stay in, not that he knows of anyway, so after wandering around the castle in a daze for far too long, he decided on the safest place for him—the Room of Requirement.

He has no idea if anyone in this world actually knows about the Room; he's banking on the fact that since he's in here, it won't open for anyone else.

From the very brief conversation he had with Neville before everything went to Hell at Hogwarts, there was much more to the Room than anyone ever realized. Eventually, he'll have to experiment with it, but right now he's too tired to do more than ward the door and fall face first into the four poster bed the Room provided.

Yet, he can't stop thinking about earlier. This day has been long—too long—with his emotions all over the place. He's been awake and aware for only a few days, and he's already got a lead for how to leave—he's also had a bit of a row with his not-really father, he's butt heads with his not-really mother, but gets along fabulously with his almost-sister (!?).

He rolls over, staring up at the darkened ceiling, knowing he should try and sleep but unable to stop thinking. He has a _sister._

Would he have had a sister, if Voldemort hadn't attacked them that Halloween, all those years ago? His fist clenches; it's one more thing _that man_ has taken away from him, one more reason he's glad they sent Hermione back to fix things.

His eyes ache and he rubs them with the back of his hand, a yawn cracking through his jaw. He toes his trainers off—they drop to the floor with a muffled thud that sounds loud in the small room.

The Room has provided him a cross between his room at the Dursley's and the Gryffindor dorm rooms—the same comfortable bed he remembers from the years he's slept in it, but small and cluttered, only room for the bed and a small desk by the window.

He wiggles on the bed, digging Hermione's beaded bag from his deep pockets and throwing it weakly onto the desk. Muffled crashing echoes around the quiet room and he winces, barely refraining from looking around guiltily for Hermione's disapproving face. "That would be the books," he mumbles to himself, a pained smile cracking his face.

He doesn't notice when he falls asleep between one worry and the next.

* * *

A groggy and petulant Harry peers suspiciously out the door, a scowl crowding his face. He only had a few hours of sleep before his mind pulled him unwillingly into consciousness, _ideas_ percolating and refusing to let him get any more rest.

(If he had bothered to take a look in the mirror before he left, he'd realize how ridiculous he looks—bloodshot and bagged eyes with all his hair on the left side sticking up from where he slept on it. As it is, he could probably scare small children, and maybe some older ones, given the fierce glare on his resting angry face.)

He considers staying in the Room until he has a better working theory on what he is going to do—in this world and to get back to his own. But he realized he is never going to get anywhere without more information and really, he is never one to run from a fight.

Strategically retreat, sure, but the more he stayed away from the inhabitants of this world, the more he felt like a coward, like he _was_ running away. So, he's spent the last twenty minutes gearing himself up to leave the Room, mentally fortifying himself so he wouldn’t have a break down, or something equally embarrassing, in front of all these not-strangers.

He almost has himself convinced he can handle anything when he enters the Great Hall for breakfast and that thought that has been reverberating around his skull becomes audible again. _Oh,_ he thinks, _that's right._ Sister. _There goes the calm._

Yet, miracle of miracles, he keeps himself together, and only the slightest widening of his pupils indicates his reaction. Other, of course, than his halting steps into the Great Hall when every head in the room turns to him—most with distrusting or disgruntled looks, some warily curious, one amused and twinkling (three guesses who) and then—she looks at him and her whole face lights up around a spoonful of porridge.

She waves him over to her, sitting with Sirius and Lupin, and his stomach does a little flip-flop. Because of course she's sitting with Sirius—the last person he want to sit with (the only person he _really_ wants to sit with).

He hesitates just long enough for her smile to dim, for even more faces around him to cloud in suspicion before he makes his way over to her, sitting in the middle of the room and at the end of the Hufflepuff table. He barely makes it a dozen steps before the full weight of Sirius's glare hones in on his barely-hunching figure.

He's had a lot of experience with attention—unwanted attention, negative attention especially—but to be judged so harshly by _Sirius?_ Well, that is an entirely different ball game.

Yet, the lack of emaciated form, the mangy hair and slightly unhinged expression actually helps him separate _his_ Sirius and _this_ Sirius in his mind. There is darkness in his gaze, the teasing of the madness that was so prominent in the Sirius of his world, but it's easily hidden, cast aside.

This Sirius hasn't had an easy life—but without years of Azkeban under his belt, the glare simply isn't as dangerous.

Harry shakes his head with a rueful sigh; that wasn't what he wanted to think about right now, heading to his metaphorical doom.

"Morning Evan!" the young witch chirps, either not noticing or not caring about the atmosphere around her.

The glares of Sirius and Remus sharpen, clearly taking note of her familiar greeting and just as clearly not liking it.

"Good morning, Rosie," Harry says sheepishly, surprisingly not flinching back from the way the adults heads snap to him. Actually, he finds himself strangely amused. He doesn't question it and goes with it.

It isn't like there has been anything in his life to amuse him lately.

Shaking off the morbid thoughts again (and really, he needs to stop with _that,_ considering how dangerous it is to get lost here), he attempts to grin in greeting, but he feels it comes out more like a smirk.

Oops, that certainly isn't going to help his case with these wizards, he thinks, but can't bring himself to care. "Black, Lupin." He nods at them, receiving grudging nods back.

He turns to Rosie, a gentle smile he doesn't notice creeping over his face. He pauses before sitting, looking around the room before nodding decisively. He grabs breakfast from a separate table—French toast, at least a litre of syrup, plenty of fruit and a plate of rashers and sausage.

"Sleep well?" he asks the young witch, juggling the plates as he sits down beside her.

She stares over at him, her mouth open and her eyes gaping. In a whiplash inducing move, she turns to Sirius, on her other side, and starts, "Can I—" before getting cut off by a preemptive, "No."

Her face falls, and she gazes longingly at the quickly demolishing mound of food in front of Harry. She shakes her head, realizing Harry had spoken to her earlier, and shrugs her thin shoulders. "I'm up now, aren't I?"

Harry inclines his head, "Point." Harry doesn't comment on the looks that Remus and Sirius exchange, though he watches it from the corner of his gaze.

"So, Evan," Remus starts, after another significant look shared with Sirius. "Mind telling us where you went yesterday, after you ran off?"

"I didn't run off," Harry rebuts instinctively, yet without real feeling. "I had a thought."

When Harry doesn't explain any further, because _obviously_ he isn't going to tell two of the people who brought him into this world of his potential to _leave_ this world, the two men share another look.

"You had a _thought,_ " Sirius says, putting enough skeptical sarcasm on the word "thought" that Harry is impressed despite himself. It was almost _Snape_ worthy, but he doesn’t dare comment on that—he likes all his appendages right where they are, thank you very much.

"I had a thought," Harry repeats simply, and it takes most of his will power to stop himself from grinning. He may be surrounded by ghosts, but he must have snapped between now and then because the aches are weakening and he's not sure if that's a bad thing or not.

Perhaps he's channeling his Sirius, who would have loved to mess with all these counterparts of his friends. He thinks Sirius would be proud of him for embracing his inner Marauder, if he could see Harry.

Harry can see _this_ Sirius grind his teeth in annoyance, just as he can see Rosie ducking her head, a grin on her face, from his peripheral vision.

"I would hope so," Remus says mildly, and Harry has to keep himself from reacting.

The Remus Harry knew always got more dangerous the more mild he became. Harry realizes with startling clarity that what he knows from his world is going to help him _a lot,_ especially with how to act around others.

Yet, Harry doesn't do anything, other than shrugging his shoulders, his grin finally sliding over his face. "I usually have a few of those. Never anything good, mind."

Rosie giggles, a tinkling, childlike sound that he's almost startled into whipping around to gawk at. He had honestly forgotten she was there, that she is just a child. Despite how hyperaware he is that _he is sitting next to his sister,_ she is surprising easy to overlook when she's silent.

_Maybe it's a Potter thing,_ he thinks, pensive. Because he, despite being a celebrity, has always been good at fading into the background. Then he invariable does something stupid and/or heroic and he's thrust back into the limelight.

_He could if he wanted to;_ he's always maintained that to Hermione, who's always given him a patient yet patronizing look while tending to the inevitable fallout.

"I'm sure," Remus indulges with dry humor, his sharp amber eyes flicking between Harry and Rosie for any sign of—what, Harry isn't really sure. He just knows that given the displeased look pinching the corners of Remus's eyes, he's found it.

Harry opens his mouth to retort, but is cut off by a commotion at the doors to the Entrance Hall. Sirius leans over and nudges Remus, standing up from the table, "Looks like Peter's back."

Harry doesn't react to the name—there are plenty of people here that he doesn't know, just as there are plenty he does—merely peering curiously at the doors and not reacting as Remus also gets up and follows Sirius to the doorway.

(The irony of his behavior mirroring the others who watched him enter the Great Hall for breakfast this morning is lost on him, though he will forever maintain he has nothing in common with these Order members.)

There's something dreadfully familiar about the strained laughter, but Harry can't see who's making it because as soon as the doors opened, whoever it was was surrounded by other Order members.

That emotional stability Harry had worked hard to claim this morning?

The muted feelings he has towards the people living in this dimension?

That flies out the window with the strength of an overpowered _Flipendo_ when the masses clear and Harry can clearly see a grinning James Potter with his arm around a tired yet smiling Peter Pettigrew.

The goblet Harry's drinking pumpkin juice from shatters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Schedule: New chapter to be posted on or before midnight on 8/2/2015.
> 
> I have no excuses on how super late this is. Last week was just... crazy. And then my computer decides it doesn't want to boot up at all. Anyway, thanks everyone who read, subscribed, commented, bookmarked, and left kudos!


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